By Rachel Weiner @ WashingtonPost.com, May 31

As soon as his cab arrived in an Islamic State safe house in December 2015, his lawyers say, Mohamad Khweis realized he had made a huge mistake.

The 27-year-old Fairfax County native fled the group three months later and was captured by Kurdish forces in Iraq. Now, as his trial begins this week in federal court in Alexandria, a jury will weigh whether a mistake of that gravity can be forgiven under terrorism laws [....]

Khweis, [defense attorney] Carmichael said, was a smoker and a drinker who lived with his parents and relied on their insurance and cellphone plans. While with the Islamic State, she said, he performed menial tasks: buying groceries, taking out the trash, getting lunch. He handled guns, she said, only when he moved them to sit on a couch.

He was asked to be a suicide bomber because he had no skills, according to Carmichael, and agreed only because he thought he might be killed as a spy if he did not.

But prosecutors say Khweis showed a sophisticated understanding of the terrorist group he joined [....]