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In 2015 the War on Terror probably seemed impossibly remote to the average citizen of the Golden Triangle. Iraq, Afghanistan and the Islamic State were little more than names in headlines for many.
In August of that year, that changed when two students at Mississippi State University — Jaelyn Young and Muhammad Dakhlalla — were arrested at Golden Triangle Regional Airport and charged with trying to join ISIS.
Now, one of them has been released, while the other is still behind bars.
According to court records, Dakhlalla was released June 1, 2022. He had originally been sentenced to eight years in federal prison and 15 of probation for conspiring to provide material support to a terrorist organization.
Young, on the other hand, remains incarcerated. She was sentenced to 12 years in federal prison and 15 years of probation, also for conspiring to provide material support to a terrorist organization. She is currently behind bars at Tallahassee Federal Correctional Institution, with a scheduled release date of Oct. 28, 2024.
Missed connection
Young is a native of Vicksburg and the child of a police officer. She had been an honors student and a cheerleader earlier in her life, with no history of publicly-stated anti-American beliefs. She was a chemistry student at MSU when she met Dakhlalla, who is from Starkville. He was a psychology major at the time, with intentions to go on to graduate school there at MSU.
They began dating in 2014 and, according to court documents, in 2015 Young announced she had converted to Islam and began wearing Islamic dress. She and Dakhlalla underwent a Muslim marriage ceremony in June 2015, but were never married civilly.
According to court records, the two watched propaganda videos put out by the Islamic State and made statements on social media that were supportive of it. It was these posts that would draw the eye of law enforcement.
A Federal Bureau of Investigation agent posing as an ISIS agent contacted first Young — who law enforcement identified as the leader of the plot — and then Dakhlalla. They told the undercover agent they supported ISIS and intended to join, with Young intending to work as a medic within the caliphate and Dakhlalla telling the undercover agent he was willing to fight.
On Aug. 8, 2015, Young and Dakhlalla were both arrested at Golden Triangle Regional Airport. They had tickets on Delta Airlines to fly to Istanbul, Turkey, via Atlanta and Amsterdam, The Netherlands. They were supposed to meet their recruiter at the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, from where they would travel to Syria to join the caliphate.
Dakhlalla cooperated with investigators, even turning over letters Young wrote to him while they were imprisoned, urging him to lie in his testimony. At his sentencing hearing, he told Federal Judge Sharion Aycock he was “completely wrong” about ISIS and that it “twisted Islam.” He credited the FBI with saving his life, thanking the agent who arrested him by name in court.
Both pled guilty to the charges against them, although Young originally pled not guilty.
Brian Jones is the local government reporter for Columbus and Lowndes County.
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