An American woman on Tuesday pleaded guilty for organising and leading an all-female military battalion in Syria on behalf of the terrorist organisation Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS).
Allison Fluke-Ekren, a former resident of Kansas, was involved in terrorist activities during 2011-19 in in multiple countries, including Syria, Libya, and Iraq. She eventually rose to become the leader and organiser of an ISIS battalion 'Khatiba Nusaybah', according to the US Department of Justice (DoJ).
"She trained women on the use of automatic firing AK-47 assault rifles, grenades, and suicide belts. Over 100 women and young girls, including as young as 10 or 11-years-old, received military training from Fluke-Ekren in Syria on behalf of ISIS," said the DoJ in a press release.
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At least one witness saw one of her children —approximately 6 or 7 years old— holding a machine gun in her home in Syria.
Fluke-Ekren left the United States for Egypt in 2018 with her second husband, who was a member of the terrorist organisation Ansar al-Sharia. She and her now-deceased husband were also involved in stealing in documenting "at least one box of documents and at least one electronic device" from the US government compound in Libya's Benghazi in 2012.
Terrorists attacked the US compound in Benghazi on September 11–12, 2012. Four Americans, including the US Ambassador to Libya John Christopher Stevens, were killed.
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They travelled from Libya to Syria via Turkey in late 2012.
In 2016, Fluke-Ekren led and organised an effort to establish a Women’s Center in Raqqa, Syria, according to DoJ.
The DoJ said, "As the Center’s leader, Fluke-Ekren also provided and assisted other female ISIS members in providing training to numerous women and young girls on the use of automatic firing AK-47 assault rifles, grenades, and explosive suicide belts."
In 2017, she became leader of the all-female Khatiba Nusaybah ISIS battalion.
Besides acts of terrorism in the Middle East and North Africa, Fluke-Ekren also wanted to recruit operatives to attack a college campus in the United States and discussed a terrorist attack on a shopping mall. She told one witness that "she considered any attack that did not kill a large number of individuals to be a waste of resources", according to an FBI affidavit.
Fluke-Ekren was brought to the United States in January to face a criminal trial, in which she has now pleaded guilty. She faces a maximum sentence of 20 years.
(With AP inputs)
