US Woman Who Led Female ISIS Battalion in Syria Faces up to 20 Years in Prison

Allison Fluke-Ekren, who led an all-female Islamic State military battalion, faces a maximum of 20 years in prison - Alexandria Virginia Sheriff's Office/AFP
Allison Fluke-Ekren, who led an all-female Islamic State military battalion, faces a maximum of 20 years in prison - Alexandria Virginia Sheriff's Office/AFP
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US Woman Who Led Female ISIS Battalion in Syria Faces up to 20 Years in Prison

Allison Fluke-Ekren, who led an all-female Islamic State military battalion, faces a maximum of 20 years in prison - Alexandria Virginia Sheriff's Office/AFP
Allison Fluke-Ekren, who led an all-female Islamic State military battalion, faces a maximum of 20 years in prison - Alexandria Virginia Sheriff's Office/AFP

An American woman who grew up on a farm in Kansas and joined ISIS in Syria, where she led an all-female military battalion, is to be sentenced Tuesday for providing support to a foreign terrorist group.

Allison Fluke-Ekren, 42, faces up to 20 years in prison after pleading guilty to terror charges in June in a US District Court in Alexandria, Virginia.

"For at least eight years, Fluke-Ekren committed terrorist acts on behalf of three foreign terrorist organizations across war zones in Libya, Iraq, and Syria," US attorney Raj Parekh said in a pre-sentencing memo, AFP reported.

"Fluke-Ekren brainwashed young girls and trained them to kill," Parekh said. "She carved a path of terror, plunging her own children into unfathomable depths of cruelty by physically, psychologically, emotionally, and sexually abusing them."

Parekh, urging Judge Leonie Brinkema to impose the maximum 20-year sentence, traced Fluke-Ekren's path from her upbringing on an 81-acre (33-hectare) farm in Kansas to her apprehension in Syria after the 2019 territorial defeat of ISIS.

While other Americans traveled to Syria and Iraq to join IISIS, most were men and Fluke-Ekren is the rare American woman who occupied a senior position in the ranks of the terrorist group.

Born Allison Brooks, she grew up in a "loving and stable home" in Overbrook, Kansas, and was considered a "gifted" student, the US attorney said.

She dropped out of high school in her sophomore year, however, and married a local man named Fluke, with whom she had two children.

Her son from that marriage testified anonymously about years of abuse inflicted on him and his siblings by their mother.

"My mother is a monster without love for her children, without an excuse for her actions," said her son, who plans to attend Tuesday's sentencing in Alexandria. "She has the blood, pain, and suffering of all of her children on her hands."

After leaving her first husband, Fluke-Ekren attended the University of Kansas, where she married a fellow student named Volkan Ekren and became a Muslim. She later earned a teaching certificate from a college in Indiana.

They had five children together and adopted another after the child's parents were killed as suicide bombers in Syria.

Fluke-Ekren, a fluent Arabic speaker, assisted Ansar al-Sharia by "reviewing and summarizing the contents of stolen US government documents."

In late 2012 or early 2013, the family moved around between Iraq, Turkey and Syria, becoming deeply involved with ISIS and living in the group's Mosul stronghold for a time.

After Fluke-Ekren's husband -- the leader of an ISIS sniper unit -- was killed in 2015 she forced their 13-year-old daughter to marry an ISIS militant, according to the US attorney.

Fluke-Ekren, who adopted the nom de guerre Umm Mohammed al-Amriki after joining ISIS, would go on to marry three more times and have four more children.

Her fourth husband was an ISIS military leader who was responsible for the ISIS defense of Raqqa in 2017.

In 2017, Fluke-Ekren became the leader of a battalion of female ISIS members called "Khatiba Nusaybah," which provided military training to more than 100 women and girls, according to the US attorney.

"During training sessions, Fluke-Ekren instructed the women and young girls on the use of AK-47 assault rifles, grenades, and explosive suicide belts" Parekh said.

"One of those children, some of whom were as young as 10 or 11-years-old, was her own daughter."



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.