Kansas woman accused of leading all-female ISIS battalion

A mother who lived in Kansas has been arrested on charges of being a member of ISIS and of having led an all-female battalion of militants trained in the use of AK 47s, grenades and suicide belts.

Allison Fluke-Ekren was turned over to the FBI on Friday and is due to appear in court in Alexandria, Virginia, on Monday.

According to a 2019 criminal complaint against Fluke-Ekren, she left Kansas for Egypt alongside her then-husband sometime in 2008. After living there until 2011 and traveling to Libya for a year, the former teacher and her husband were allegedly smuggled into Syria along with $15,000, which they used to purchase weapons for the terrorist group. 

In a memo, which was unsealed on Friday ahead of her initial appearance in a U.S. court, filed in support of her continued detention, the Deptartment of Justice cites a witness who said Fluke-Ekren and her husband left Libya for Syria in 2012 because “the terrorist organization Ansar al-Sharia was no longer conducting attacks in Libya, and Fluke-Ekren wished to engage in violent jihad.”

As the years passed, she moved up the ISIS ranks to lead a military division known as the Khatiba Nusayabah, government officials have alleged. The Khatiba Nusayabah are an all-female battalion made up of women married to ISIS fighters. 

Fluke-Ekren allegedly trained more than 100 women to use AK-47 rifles, grenades and suicide belts; she is also accused in the complaint of training children to use suicide belts and teaching them “extremist ISIS doctrine.” 

The FBI agent who detailed in the complaint her alleged involvement with ISIS contends Fluke-Ekren trained the Khatiba Nusayabah to defend the city of Raqqa during the assault on the city by Syrian defense forces in 2017. She departed the city months before the siege began, but all women who stayed through it were reportedly required to attend her training sessions. 

Fluke-Ekren was married to an ISIS fighter who died during an airstrike while attempting to conduct a terrorist attack in Syria. She later married another ISIS member who specialized in drones, according to the complaint.

No attorneys are listed for Fluke-Ekren, however she is expected to be appointed one on Monday, when she is set to appear in federal court in Virginia. If convicted, Fluke-Ekren faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison, according to the Justice Department.