CHICAGO (AP) - An 18-year-old Illinois man is accused of trying to join an Al-Qaeda-affiliated group in Syria via a sham FBI website.

Abdella Ahmad Tounisi is set to appear in a Chicago federal court on Tuesday.

Officials arrested him as he prepared to board a plane to Turkey at O'Hare International Airport. The Aurora teenager is charged with attempting to provide material support to terrorism.

Authorities say Tounisi wrote to an FBI agent posing as a terrorist recruiter, saying he was willing to die but had no fighting experience.

The complaint says Tounisi is friends with Adel Daoud, who is charged with trying to detonate what he thought was a bomb outside a Chicago bar last year.

Tounisi's father, Ahmad Tounisi, has said his son would not have done what authorities allege.