An 18-year-old Chicago-area man accused of planning to join an al Qaeda-linked group fighting in Syria has been arrested by the FBI, the agency said on Saturday.

Abdella Ahmad Tounisi of Aurora, Illinois, was taken into custody late on Friday as he prepared to board a plane at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport bound for Turkey, the FBI said in a statement.

It added that Tounisi was a friend of Adel Daoud, an American accused of trying to stage a bombing outside a downtown Chicago bar last year. The agency said Tounisi had not been involved in that plot.

Tounisi appeared before a U.S. magistrate on Saturday on one count of attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization. He was ordered held until his next court appearance on Tuesday, the FBI said.

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A criminal complaint accused Tounisi of making online contact in March with a person he thought was a recruiter for Jabhat al-Nusrah, the militant Islamist Syrian group that the U.S. government calls a foreign terrorist organization operating as a wing of al Qaeda in Iraq.

The supposed recruiter was an FBI employee working undercover, the agency said.

Tounisi said in emails to the FBI employee that he planned to get to Syria via Turkey and was willing to die in the Syrian struggle, the complaint said.

Syria is in the grips of a civil war that began in 2011 as a revolt against President Bashar Assad and has killed more than 70,000 people.

On April 10, Tounisi bought an airline ticket for a flight from Chicago to Istanbul. On Thursday, the undercover FBI employee gave him a bus ticket for travel from Istanbul to Gaziantep, Turkey, near the border with Syria, the complaint said.

Tounisi's attorney, Michael Madden, of the federal public defender program could not be reached for comment.

Tounisi faces a maximum of 15 years in prison if convicted.

The 2012 arrest of Daoud, 19, also involved his alleged communication with an undercover member of the FBI. The fake bomb that Daoud tried to detonate outside a Chicago bar was provided to him by an undercover FBI agent, authorities said.

Daoud was indicted on two counts of attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction and maliciously attempting to use an explosive to destroy a building. He pleaded not guilty in October in federal court.

KABUL, Afghanistan -- There isn’t much of a buzz about NATO’s summit on the streets of the Afghan capital Kabul, at least not outside government agency walls.  The majority of citizens continue to focus on earning a few dollars a day to survive in a country tormented by war since 1979.

The NATO gathering in Chicago is expected to draw up an exit strategy and finalize a financial commitment to Afghan Security Forces (ANSF), as the foreign combat mission comes to an end in a couple of years.  The Afghan government is asking the international community to commit $4.1 billion a year to keep their security operations running. 

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Friday after prayers at a mosque in the center of the city, most of the men did not even know what the summit in Chicago was about or even Afghanistan’s role in it.

Afghanistan: Nation at a crossroads

Others used it as an opportunity to raise their frustrations about U.S. and international involvement in Afghanistan.

“They haven’t achieved anything in the last 10 years!” Mullah Khaista Gul said.  “They should learn lessons from the past.  We have seen conferences in the past, in London, Germany and Afghanistan, but none of them benefited ordinary Afghans.”

Obama, NATO leaders chart path out of Afghanistan

Some, although unaware of the purpose of this summit, know that it involves more financial aid and hope it can in some way benefit Afghanistan.

“The international community should not leave Afghanistan alone,” Khalil Khan, a 29-year-old pharmacist, said.  “The Chicago conference is a hopeful gathering and the international community and Afghans should really think about a good future for all of us.  They should hand their money and responsibility to good people who can be trusted, not warlords.”

Raz Mohammad, 27, who works with a trucking company, was the only one we spoke to who understood what the Chicago meetings on Afghanistan would be about -- the funding of Afghan security forces.

Mohammad said he thinks that the international community should continue to support the security forces if they want to make sure Afghanistan doesn't fall into Taliban hands again.  He said that too many mistakes have been made in the past and that they need to be resolved quickly and correctly.

Report: Taliban, Afghan troops forge agreements

“In Nuristan province last year, the police didn’t receive their salaries for four or five months.  Many of them got fed up and angry then decided to join the Taliban,” Mohammad said.

But he also believes that there are more problems than just financial and he said more needs to be done to stop the high attrition rates within the security forces. 

“I have also seen many people join the army or police for six months, make some money and go back to use that money to help grow their crops,” he said.  “It’s important that this be discussed in Chicago and see how they can fix it.”

As world leaders gather at the NATO summit in Chicago, most Afghans don’t know how it will affect their future.  But there are some who still hold on to the hope that those leaders will make the right decisions to benefit Afghanistan.

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Members of the Afghan army are forging secret alliances with the Taliban, threatening to undermine the ability of Afghan authorities to maintain control just as NATO troops prepare to hand over power to the country's security forces, Britain's Sunday Times reported. 

In Ghazni province an hour from capital Kabul, Afghan army lieutenant Mohammad Wali admitted to the newspaper that he and a local Taliban commander were working together. (The Sunday Times operates behind a paywall)

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"We lost seven men in an ambush when I first arrived at the base," Wali, who commands 18 men, told The Times. "So I thought, why risk my life when there's another way?"

The two share intelligence about military operations and plan to loot Nato supply convoys and divide-up the proceeds, the newspaper reported. 

Wali told the newspaper that he met the local Taliban chief in a bazaar, where the two agreed a ceasefire and plans to ambush NATO convoys on the Kabul-Kandahar highway.

"The plan is simple," Wali told the newspaper. "When the Taliban attack the convoys we stay in our bases. If the Taliban capture something valuable then they share it with us later."

Local Taliban commander Mohammad Hassan told The Times that he had hit dozens of convoys in this way.

Forget protests: NATO summit's problem is Afghanistan

Around 20 percent of NATO supply convoys come under attack in Afghanistan, the newspaper reported. NATO and the government of President Hamid Karzai have down-played down the significance of such ceasefires and informal agreements, it added.

However, at least one recently returned officer said such agreements seemed to be commonplace. 

"In almost every combat outpost I visited, troopers reported to me they had intercepted radio or other traffic between (Afghan forces) and local Taliban making mini non-aggression deals," Lt. Col. Daniel Davis told the newspaper.

NYT: US-led imperative in peril as trained Afghans turn enemy

In its own internal assessments, NATO acknowledged that that there has been a "conspicuous increase" in intelligence indicating cooperation between the Nato-trained Afghan security and the Taliban, according to the newspaper. 

The Pentagon has said that the performance of the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) are key to the success of the handover.  

"The ANSF, now responsible for leading security for almost half of Afghanistan’s population, partners with (NATO forces in Afghanistan) on nearly 90 percent of all coalition operations, of which the ANSF is the lead for more than 40 percent of those partnered operations," according to the Pentagon's 'Report on Progress and Stability in Afghanistan.'

Motorcycle bomber kills 10 in eastern Afghanistan

Despite the Pentagon's claims, almost all of the joint activities were simple operations, Michael O’Hanlon, a defense expert at the Brookings Institution, who visited Afghanistan last week, told The Times. 

Reports that some Afghan security officials are colluding with insurgents is sure to cause worry as NATO nations meet in Chicago to discuss the future of the war-torn country once 130,000 NATO troops leave.

While some troops from NATO countries will most probably stay behind after 2014, local forces will be expected to bear the brunt of the fighting and security operations, and stop the country from sliding into civil war. 

About 3,000 foreign soldiers have died in Afghanistan since the war began after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

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