A photograph provided by the Alexandria, Va., Sheriff’s Office in January 2022 shows Allison Fluke-Ekren. Fluke-Ekren, 42, who used to live in Kansas, was arrested after federal prosecutors charged her with joining the Islamic State group and commanding an all-female battalion of AK-47 gun fighters. .
Alexandria Sheriff’s Office / AP
hide captions
switch captions
Alexandria Sheriff’s Office / AP
A photograph provided by the Alexandria, Va., Sheriff’s Office in January 2022 shows Allison Fluke-Ekren. Fluke-Ekren, 42, who used to live in Kansas, was arrested after federal prosecutors charged her with joining the Islamic State group and commanding an all-female battalion of AK-47 gun fighters. .
Alexandria Sheriff’s Office / AP
A US woman on Tuesday pleaded guilty to running an all-female military group for ISIS in Syria.
Allison Fluke-Ekren, 42, who became the leader of an ISIS battalion known as Khatiba Nusaybah, taught women how to use AK-47s and explosive devices, according to the US Justice Department.
“More than 100 women and girls, including 10 or 11 years old, received military training from Fluke-Ekren in Syria on behalf of ISIS,” prosecutors said in a statement.
Fluke-Ekren, who lived in Kansas, was part of “terrorism-related operations” in Syria, Libya and Iraq between 2011 and 2019, according to prosecutors.
Her late second husband was part of the Ansar al-Sharia terrorist group and claims he helped steal US documents and an electronic device after the September 11 attacks. 2012, targeting the US Special Mission and CIA in Benghazi.
Together, the couple provided briefs from the stolen items and reported them to the head of Ansar al-Sharia, the group responsible for the terrorist attack, according to prosecutors.
In 2014, prosecutors said Fluke-Ekren told a witness of his desire to carry out an attack on US soil.
“To carry out the attack, Fluke-Ekren explained that she could go to a shopping mall in the United States, park a vehicle packed with explosives in the structure’s basement or garage basement, and jack it up. detonated explosives in the vehicle with a cell phone-activated device,” prosecutors said.
Prosecutors said Fluke-Ekren also told a witness she wanted to target a college in the United States, specifically a college in the Midwest.
“Fluke-Ekren added that she considers any attack that fails to kill a large number of instances as a waste of resources,” according to prosecutors.
They said Fluke-Ekren told a witness in 2018 about instructions she gave someone to text a family member about her death to avoid the US government trying to look for her.
“Fluke-Ekren informed this witness that it was important to kill the ‘kuffars’ (unbelievers) and die as martyrs on behalf of IS in Syria,” prosecutors said.
Two of her attorneys declined requests for comment.
She has been in custody of the Eastern District of Virginia authorities since late January.
Fluke-Ekren, who pleaded guilty to conspiring to provide material or resource support to a foreign terrorist organization, will be sentenced in October and faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
