A former Kansas woman and mother of five has been charged with joining ISIS and leading an all-female battalion of fighters in Syria, the Department …
A former Kansas woman and mother of five has been charged with joining ISIS and leading an all-female battalion of fighters in Syria, the Department of Justice announced Saturday. Allison Fluke-Ekren,42, allegedly trained her own children to use AK-47s and suicide belts, translated speeches made by ISIS leaders, and conspired to plan an attack on an American college campus, the DOJ said. Fluke-Ekren was appointed in 2016 to lead the Khatiba Nusaybah, an all-female military unit of the Islamic State, in Raqqa, Syria, according to a criminal complaint filed in 2019 and unsealed Saturday. In that role, she trained more than 100 women to fire assault rifles, throw grenades, drive explosives-laden vehicles, and use suicide belts so that they could fight in the 2017 siege of Raqqa — trainings that local leaders made mandatory for all female residents, witnesses allege. One witness described how proud the leaders of ISIS and members of the battalion were to have an American instructor.
