<mediadc-video-embed data-state="{"cms.site.owner":{"_ref":"00000161-3486-d333-a9e9-76c6fbf30000","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b93390000"},"cms.content.publishDate":1654631084604,"cms.content.publishUser":{"_ref":"0000017d-00b6-db7d-abfd-7cb766d10000","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b933a0007"},"cms.content.updateDate":1654631084604,"cms.content.updateUser":{"_ref":"0000017d-00b6-db7d-abfd-7cb766d10000","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b933a0007"},"rawHtml":"
var _bp = _bp||[]; _bp.push({ "div": "Brid_54618782", "obj": {"id":"27789","width":"16","height":"9","video":"1027697"} }); ","_id":"00000181-3fb2-dedf-ad93-bff3abd90000","_type":"2f5a8339-a89a-3738-9cd2-3ddf0c8da574"}”>Video EmbedA Kansas woman admitted to providing assistance to the Islamic State and training a rare battalion of over 100 women and children in Syria.
Allison Fluke-Ekren, 42, coached over 100 female fighters, which included some as young as 10, to use automatic AK-47 rifles, grenades, and suicide belts on behalf of ISIS, according to the Justice Department. She faces up to 20 years behind bars after pleading guilty to a charge of providing material support to terrorists.
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“In or around mid-2016, Fluke-Ekren led and organized an effort to establish a Women’s Center in Raqqa, Syria,” the department explained. “Fluke-Ekren obtained authorization from the ‘Wali,’ the ISIS-appointed mayor of Raqqa, in order to establish the center. There, Fluke-Ekren and others provided medical services, educational services about the Islamic State, childcare, and various training to women and young girls.”
Fluke-Ekren helmed the all-female fighting force that became known as the Khatiba Nusaybah, starting in late 2016, per prosecutors. During a hearing on Tuesday, she stressed, “We didn’t intentionally train any young girls,” according to CNN.
Islamic State Female Battalion
Her confessed terrorist activities took place between 2011 and 2019, the department stated. Around 2008, Fluke-Ekren and her second husband departed the United States to Egypt and later traveled to Libya and Turkey before moving to Syria. Her husband became a member of the terrorist group Ansar al Sharia.
The two were residing in Benghazi when the 2012 attack, spearheaded by Ansar al Sharia, killed the ambassador and three other U.S. citizens in the U.S. Consulate. Following the attack, she helped her husband analyze stolen documents from the compound, CNN reported. Later on, he reportedly led a team of snipers for ISIS and was killed in a 2016 airstrike.
In 2014, Fluke-Ekren mused about conducting an attack against the United States, a witness claimed. Oftentimes, when she heard reports of attacks in other countries, she would wish they had transpired on U.S. soil instead, the witness recalled. Fluke-Ekren also ruminated over plots to detonate explosives on college campuses in the Midwest, court documents detailed.
“Fluke-Ekren explained that she could go to a shopping mall in the United States, park a vehicle full of explosives in the basement or parking garage level of the structure, and detonate the explosives in the vehicle with a cell phone triggering device,” the Justice Department said. “Fluke-Ekren further said that she considered any attack that did not kill a large number of individuals to be a waste of resources.”
At least one of those plans was presented to since-deceased ISIS leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi but was ultimately tabled, according to court documents. In addition to training female fighters, Fluke-Ekren helped translate ISIS speeches, having fluency in English, Arabic, and Turkish, prosecutors alleged.
Fluke-Ekren’s association with ISIS lasted until May 2019, and she turned herself in to local police in Syria during the summer of 2021, CBS News reported. She was taken into U.S. custody last January, per the department. Fluke-Ekren is scheduled to face sentencing on Oct. 25.
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Fluke-Ekren had studied biology at the University of Kansas and became a teacher at the Islamic School of Greater Kansas City before becoming radicalized and traversing to the Middle East, the New York Times reported. Authorities believe she has at least seven children, five of which were fathered by her second husband.
Prosecutors have amassed several witnesses, some of whom have faced “life-long trauma,” prosecutors said, per CNN. Some of them may testify against her when it comes time for sentencing.
