Kansas Woman Arrested for Allegedly Leading All-Female ISIS Unit

A 42-year-old woman from Kansas is accused of traveling to Syria to join ISIS, where she went on to lead an all-female battalion and plan potential attacks in the U.S.

Allison Fluke-Ekren was transferred into FBI custody after being apprehended in Syria. Authorities unsealed a 2019 criminal complaint in which she was charged with providing support and resources to a terrorist organization.

According to the Department of Justice, Fluke-Ekren traveled to Syria several years ago to commit or support terrorism. Since she left the U.S., Fluke-Ekren has allegedly been involved with several terrorism-related activities on behalf of ISIS since at least 2014. These activities allegedly include planning and recruiting operatives for a potential future attack on a U.S. college campus, serving as the appointed leader and organizer of an ISIS military battalion, training women to use assault rifles, grenades, and suicide belts.

Additionally, the DOJ said Fluke-Ekren allegedly provided ISIS with services including providing lodging, translating speeches made by ISIS leaders, training children to use assault rifles and suicide belts, and teaching extremist ISIS doctrine.

Fluke-Ekren was born in the U.S., where she married and worked as a teacher, authorities said.

By 2016, Fluke-Ekren’s husband had been killed, and she married an ISIS leader. An unnamed member of her family also told authorities that she had wanted to attack a U.S. shopping mall using a car full of explosives in an underground parking garage; the plan didn’t go forward because her husband didn’t approve.

Fluke-Ekren “considered any attack that did not kill a large number of individuals to be a waste of resources,” authorities said.

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A Kansas woman has been arrested for allegedly leading an all-female ISIS battalion