“The most remarkable thing about Jaelyn and Moe is that theirs was a largely straightforward case. In less than three months, the FBI had crafted a powerful indictment against them. Theoretically, when the Bureau comes across two kids like Jaelyn and Moe—lost, in love, and grasping toward a dark future—agents could try to set them on another path.”
The day she left to join the Islamic State, Jaelyn Young took a floral backpack with clothes, craft supplies, and a scrapbook. Muhammad Dakhlalla, whose friends call him Moe, packed a bar of soap, gray sweats, and a pack of Starburst minis. She was organized: Her wallet held bank cards and insurance cards, plus a Sonic receipt tucked inside. He loved video games: His only t-shirt featured the robots of Portal 2. On that hot August day, they were headed to Turkey, on their way to Syria.
Moe, 22, had graduated from Mississippi State University in Starkville a few months earlier, in the spring of 2015, and had been accepted into a psychology master’s program there for the fall. He has a friendly, slightly dorky demeanor in conversation, ever the goofy baby brother of an expressive Muslim family. Jaelyn, just turned 20, was a sophomore in chemistry, working in a lab on nanoparticles. High-school friends describe the tiny Vicksburg native as a “spunky, smart robotics chick” from a strict black family, with a Navy veteran and police officer for a father and a school superintendent for a mother. The two started dating in November 2014; she converted just a few months later. By June, they had wed in an Islamic ceremony, although they never obtained a marriage license. Moe and Jaelyn were both academically talented, but neither planned to return to school. God willing, Jaelyn allegedly told their online recruiter, they would be overseas by summer’s end.
She was nervous about traveling, she allegedly told her recruiter—she had never been outside the United States. He asked about basic training and whether ISIS follows Islamic law. “I am not familiar with sharia,” he allegedly told the recruiter. “I am excited about coming … but I feel I won’t know what all I will be doing.”
They were arrested while preparing to board their flight. Jaelyn and Moe weren’t actually talking to ISIS recruiters. Their contacts had been undercover FBI employees the whole time.
Extremist ideas have never been easier to access. Propaganda videos, like the ones Jaelyn and Moe were watching around the spring of 2015, are on YouTube. Extremist communities can be found through Twitter and Facebook; pseudonymous accounts can be opened with just a few clicks. The vast majority of people who watch and read propaganda never act on it. But some begin to believe that the American media offer only a “thick cloud of falsehood” about ISIS, as Jaelyn put it.
In the past three years, the FBI has invested significant resources in tracking and arresting these ISIS sympathizers in the United States. Between March 2014 and April 2017, 125 people have been charged with ISIS-related crimes. But in February 2015, FBI Director James Comey said there were terrorism investigations happening in all 50 states, and later that year, he said more than 900 were open. ISIS, said Comey, is “putting out a siren song through their slick propaganda, through social media, that goes like this: ‘Troubled soul, come to the caliphate. You will live a life of glory; these are the apocalyptic end times. You will find a life of meaning here, fighting for our so-called caliphate. And if you can’t come, kill somebody where you are.’”
The small group of people who have been arrested on ISIS-related charges are an idiosyncratic bunch—they come from a range of socioeconomic backgrounds, and each case is distinctive. But many do share important traits with Moe and Jaelyn. According to the Center on National Security at Fordham University’s School of Law, their median age is 25. Three-quarters are American citizens. Nine out of 10 are male. Over one-third are converts to Islam. Although roughly a quarter of cases have involved people of Arab descent like Moe, whose father is Palestinian, most come from other ethnic backgrounds, including African Americans like Jaelyn. Few have criminal backgrounds. Many live with their parents. And roughly 90 percent of cases involve social media, sometimes including online conversation with a recruiter, either real or undercover.
A recent court case shows that activity on Twitter may now be all it takes to get arrested on ISIS-related charges. In February 2016, for example, a Missouri woman was arrested for allegedly retweeting pro-ISIS solicitations of violence against U.S. government personnel. She was charged with making threats across state lines—a novel approach to prosecution in terrorism cases. But the plurality of prosecutions are brought and closed on one charge: conspiracy to provide material support to ISIS. These are cases of people caught on the verge of action, like Jaelyn and Moe—at the airport, or with plane tickets ready in hand. While a handful of cases have involved weapons charges, most don’t. These lonely, isolated admirers of the caliphate hope to join their allies abroad.
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