US Ex-teacher Pleads Guilty to Leading ISIS Women's Brigade

The seal of the United States Department of State is seen in Washington, US, January 26, 2017. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts
The seal of the United States Department of State is seen in Washington, US, January 26, 2017. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts
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US Ex-teacher Pleads Guilty to Leading ISIS Women's Brigade

The seal of the United States Department of State is seen in Washington, US, January 26, 2017. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts
The seal of the United States Department of State is seen in Washington, US, January 26, 2017. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

A former US schoolteacher who became a high-ranking ISIS official and organized an all-female military battalion, pleaded guilty Tuesday to supporting a foreign terrorist group, the Justice Department said.

Kansas-born Allison Fluke-Ekren, 42, admitted to engaging in "terrorism-related activities" in Syria, Libya, and Iraq between 2011 and 2019.

"Fluke-Ekren ultimately served as the leader and organizer of an ISIS military battalion, known as the Khatiba Nusaybah, where she trained women on the use of automatic firing AK-47 assault rifles, grenades, and suicide belts," the department said.

It is the first prosecution in the US of a female ISIS battalion leader, said First Assistant US Attorney Raj Parekh. More than 100 women and young girls received training. And some of the girls, who were as young as 10 or 11 years old, may wish to speak at Fluke-Ekren's sentencing hearing, Parekh said.

“Some of them may wish an opportunity to address the court because we would argue that there is lifelong trauma and pain that has been inflicted on them,” Parekh added.

Fluke-Ekren's husband was a member of the extremist Ansar al-Sharia group which attacked the US mission in Bebghazi, Libya in 2012, and then became a leader of an ISIS sniper group in Syria.

The department said the two were involved in extremist activities across the Middle East after they left the United States in 2011.

While in Syria, the department said, she spoke of desires to bomb a US shopping mall or university. she carried the nom de guerre Umm Mohammed al-Amriki.

In 2016-17 she became leader of the all-woman Khatiba Nusaybah battalion, which undertook physical, medical and weapons training to support ISIS.

Fluke-Ekren was apprehended in Syria sometime after the early-2019 territorial defeat of ISIS, and flown to the United States on January 28.

The court record indicates that her attorneys and the Justice Department spent months negotiating her guilty plea on a single count, supporting a foreign terrorist organization, a charge which brings up to 20 years in prison.

She is scheduled to be sentenced on October 25.



Zelenskiy Says Trump is in Disinformation Bubble on Ukraine

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy gives a press conference in Kyiv, Ukraine, on February 19, 2025, amid the Russian attack on Ukraine. TETIANA DZHAFAROVA/Pool via REUTERS
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy gives a press conference in Kyiv, Ukraine, on February 19, 2025, amid the Russian attack on Ukraine. TETIANA DZHAFAROVA/Pool via REUTERS
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Zelenskiy Says Trump is in Disinformation Bubble on Ukraine

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy gives a press conference in Kyiv, Ukraine, on February 19, 2025, amid the Russian attack on Ukraine. TETIANA DZHAFAROVA/Pool via REUTERS
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy gives a press conference in Kyiv, Ukraine, on February 19, 2025, amid the Russian attack on Ukraine. TETIANA DZHAFAROVA/Pool via REUTERS

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy hit back on Wednesday at Donald Trump's suggestion that Ukraine was responsible for Russia's 2022 full-scale invasion, saying the US president was trapped in a Russian disinformation bubble.

Speaking ahead of talks with Trump's Ukraine envoy a day after Trump said Ukraine "should never have started" the conflict, Zelenskiy said he would like Trump's team to have "more truth" about Ukraine.

The Ukrainian leader said Trump's assertion that his approval rating was just 4% was Russian disinformation and that any attempt to replace him would fail, Reuters reported.

"We have evidence that these figures are being discussed between America and Russia. That is, President Trump ... unfortunately lives in this disinformation space," Zelenskiy told Ukrainian TV.

Less than a month into his presidency, Trump has upended US policy on Ukraine and Russia, ending Washington's bid to isolate Russia over its invasion of Ukraine with a Trump-Putin phone call and talks between senior US and Russian officials.

Trump said he may meet Putin this month. The Kremlin said such a meeting could take longer to prepare but Russia's sovereign wealth fund said it expected a number of US companies to return to Russia as early as the second quarter.

The US-Russia talks on ending the war in Ukraine have excluded both Ukraine and Europe, which Trump says must step up to guarantee any ceasefire. Zelenskiy has suggested giving US companies the right to extract valuable minerals in Ukraine in return for US security guarantees, but indicated that Trump was not offering that.

Zelenskiy told a press conference the US had given Ukraine $67 billion in weapons and $31.5 billion in budget support, and that American demands for $500 billion in minerals are "not a serious conversation", and that he could not sell his country.

He was expected to meet visiting US Ukraine envoy Keith Kellogg, who said as he arrived in Kyiv that he expected substantial talks as the war approaches its three-year mark.

"We understand the need for security guarantees," Kellogg told journalists, saying that part of his mission would be "to sit and listen".

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov lauded Trump for saying that previous US support of Ukraine's bid to join the NATO military alliance was a major cause of the war in Ukraine.