A young Mississippi couple have been charged with attempting to join the Islamic State militant group.

Twenty-year-old Jaelyn Delshaun Young and 22-year-old Muhammad "Mo" Dakhlalla were arrested at the airport just before boarding a flight with tickets bound for Istanbul.

A judge in Oxford, Mississippi, refused them bail, even though the pair had never been in trouble with the law before and have relatives willing to oversee their home confinement.

Video journalist: Andrew Webb