Mom From Kansas Led ISIS Battalion Of Women And Girls

ALEXANDRIA, VA — A former Kansas resident pleaded guilty Tuesday to organizing and leading an all-female military battalion in Syria on behalf of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, a designated terrorist organization, according to federal officials.

Allison Fluke-Ekren, 42, engaged in terrorist activities from 2011 to 2019 in Libya, Syria and Iraq, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Eastern District of Virginia. She is a U.S. citizen, previously worked in the U.S. as a teacher and had converted to Islam, the New York Times reported.

Fluke-Ekren ultimately served as the leader of the ISIS battalion Khatiba Nusaybah, where she taught women how to use automatic firing AK-47 assault rifles, grenades and suicide belts, a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office said. Fluke-Ekren trained over 100 women and girls, some as young as 10 or 11, in Syria on behalf of ISIS, according to the news release. Among them was her own daughter, who in 2017 escaped to Kansas, according to the Times.

In 2008, Fluke-Ekren moved to Egypt with her husband, a former member of the terrorist organization Ansar al-Sharia, the news release said. Three years later, they moved to Benghazi, Libya, according to the news release.

In the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2012, terrorist attack on the U.S. Special Mission and CIA Annex in Benghazi, Fluke-Ekren’s husband claimed to have removed at least one box of documents and one electronic device from the U.S. compound, the news release said. Fluke-Ekren assisted her husband with reviewing and summarizing the contents of the stolen government documents, which were provided to the leadership of Ansar al-Sharia in Benghazi, according to the news release.

Fluke-Ekren’s husband went on to ascend through the ranks of ISIS and ultimately became a leader of ISIS snipers in Syria, where the couple eventually lived, the news release said.

“While residing in Syria, Fluke-Ekren told a witness about her desire to conduct an attack in the United States,” the news release said.

“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. Fluke-Ekren also spoke about learning how to make bombs and explosives. Fluke-Ekren further said that she considered any attack that did not kill a large number of individuals to be a waste of resources.”

In 2014, Fluke-Ekren discussed ideas for an attack involving explosives on the campus of a U.S.-based college in the midwest, the news release said. Three years later, the Khatiba Nusaybah battalion for female ISIS members began operations, according to the news release.

Fluke-Ekren told someone in Syria to send a message to one of her family members saying she was dead so the U.S. government would not try to find her, the news release said, but she was transferred into the custody of the Eastern District of Virginia on Jan. 28.

Fluke-Ekren pleaded guilty to conspiring to provide material support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization and is scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 25, according to the news release. She faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison, the news release said.