A woman from Kansas is accused of going to Syria to join the Islamic State and then leading a battalion of women fighters and planning attacks in the US.
The Department of Justice said that Allison Fluke-Ekren was taken into custody by the FBI on Friday. She was charged with providing support and resources to a terrorist organization as she was taken into custody.
She married and worked as a teacher in the US, where she was born. An interview with her about home-schooling her children was included in a 2004 Lawrence Journal-World newspaper article. In a motion filed Friday, federal prosecutors said that she and her family moved to Egypt in 2008 and traveled back to the US frequently over the next several years. A couple and their children visit the pyramids.
They moved to Libya in 2011 and were smuggled into Syria in 2012 with $15,000 in their possession.
The source of the complaint is a government source. According to the source, the person claimed to be working on a plan to attack a college in the US with a backpack filled with explosives. The plan was approved by the leader of the group, but her work stopped when she found out she was pregnant, according to the source.
She began training women and children to use weapons, including AK-47s and suicide belts, when she translated speeches by the leaders of the group. One person said they saw a child with a machine gun in her home.
A source told authorities that the husband of Fluke-Ekren had been killed and she married a leader of the Islamic State. Several people told authorities that she became the leader of the group after she married a fighter from the group. One source said she provided military training for more than 100 women and girls, and that the leaders of the terrorist group were proud to have an American instructor.
An unnamed member of Fluke-Ekren's family told authorities that she wanted to attack a US shopping mall with a car full of explosives, but her husband didn't approve.
The complaint said that Fluke-Ehren considered an attack that did not kill a lot of people to be a waste of resources.
She is scheduled to appear in court on Monday, and prosecutors noted in their motion that multiple witnesses are prepared to testify against her. She could be sentenced to 20 years in prison if convicted.
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