US woman from Kansas to plead guilty for leading ISIS battalion
June 7, 2022, 4:20 pm

US woman from Kansas to plead guilty for leading ISIS battalion

ISIS flag. (Reuters)

US court records showed that an American woman is set to plead guilty Tuesday (June 7) for leading an all-female battalion of ISIS in Syria.

According to a court notation, a plea hearing for Allison Fluke-Ekren is to take place in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia. Her lawyer did not immediately return an email seeking comment.

The Alarabiya English reported, citing the Associated Press, Fluke-Ekren, who once lived in Kansas, was brought to the US in January to face a criminal charge of providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization.

She moved to Egypt in 2008 and starting in late 2016, according to prosecutors, she led an all-female ISIS unit in the Syrian city of Raqqa that was trained in the use of AK-47 rifles, grenades and suicide belts.

Women look after children at the Kurdish-run al-Hol camp for the displaced where families of ISIS foreign fighters are held, in the al-Hasakeh governorate in northeastern Syria, on October 17, 2019. (AFP)

A detention memo filed by First Assistant US Attorney Raj Parekh says she trained children how to use assault rifles and at least one witness saw one of her children — approximately 6 or 7 years old — holding a machine gun in the family’s home in Syria.

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Prosecutors have also said Fluke-Ekren wanted to recruit operatives to attack a college campus in the US and discussed a terrorist attack on a shopping mall. According to an FBI affidavit, she told one witness that “she considered any attack that did not kill a large number of individuals to be a waste of resources."

A criminal complaint against Fluke-Ekren was filed under seal in 2019 but not made public until she was brought back to the US to face charges.

Source: alarabiyaenglish

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