CHICAGO (AP) — A U.S. teenager has been arrested on terrorism-related charges and accused of seeking to join an al-Qaeda-affiliated group in war-torn Syria, the FBI said Saturday.

Abdella Ahmad Tounisi, 18, was arrested Friday night as he attempted to board a flight from Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport to Turkey, which borders Syria, the FBI said.

The head of the FBI office in Chicago, Cory B. Nelson, said in a statement announcing the arrest that there are no links between Tounisi’s case and the bombings at the Boston Marathon earlier in the week.

Tounisi, a U.S. citizen, is charged with one count of attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization. If convicted, he faces a maximum 15-year prison term.

Tounisi carried out research online about Jabhat al-Nusrah, or Nursa Front, which is a well-organized rebel faction fighting Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime in a bloody civil war, the complaint says. The U.S. government has designated the group a foreign terrorist organization, describing it as an alias for the group al-Qaeda in Iraq.