Prosecutors say the Kansas woman who led the all-female ISIS battalion faces federal charges

An American woman, originally from Kansas, was arrested after organizing and leading an all-female military battalion on behalf of ISIS, The Justice Department said on Saturday.

Allison Fluke-Ekren, 42, was first arrested in Syria and placed under FBI custody on Friday. She now faces federal charges of providing and conspiring to provide material support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization.

Follow criminal complaint filed in 2019 and unsealed after the arrest of Fluke-Ekren, she joined a foreign terrorist organization and began conducting a variety of terrorism-related activities on its behalf from at least 2014 until around 2017.

These alleged activities include planning attacks on US university campuses and serving as the designated leader of an ISIS battalion and training women and children how to used guns and bombs, according to the lawsuit. Fluke-Ekren, who is fluent in English and Arabic, was also accused of translating extremist doctrine.

The complaint details the eyewitness accounts of six separate individuals who observed Fluke-Ekren’s activities, including discussing a desire to conduct a terrorist attack on a shopping mall of the company. United States by parking a vehicle full of explosives in the basement of a building and detonating the explosives with a cell phone trigger device, according to authorities.

Around the end of 2016, Fluke-Ekren is believed to have become the leader and organizer of a battalion of only female ISIS members who were married to male ISIS fighters, according to a Justice Department news release today. Saturday.

Fluke-Ekren was married to an ISIS fighter who died in an airstrike while attempting to carry out a terrorist attack in Syria. She later married another ISIS member who specializes in drones, according to the lawsuit.

No attorneys are listed for Fluke-Ekren, but she is expected to be appointed Monday, as she prepares 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.