US citizen led an all-female ISIS battalion
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The United States Justice Department says a woman that led an all-female ISIS battalion in Syria and had planned attacks on the US has been charged.
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US Department of Justice.
A US citizen who allegedly led an all-female ISIS battalion in Syria has been charged with providing material support to a foreign terrorist group, the US Justice Department announced Saturday.
The woman, identified as Allison Fluke-Ekren, formerly of the US state of Kansas, had been named in a sealed criminal complaint filed in 2019 in a federal Virginia court, the government statement said.
Among other things, the statement indicated that the woman had planned an attack on a US college campus and spoke of organizing a devastating attack on a US shopping mall.
The statement mentioned that the 42-year-old -- who has used at least five aliases -- had been apprehended previously in Syria but was transferred into FBI custody on Friday.
She is expected to make her initial appearance before the US District Court for Eastern Virginia, in the Washington suburb of Alexandria, on Monday.
Fluke-Ekren traveled to Syria "several years ago for the purpose of committing or supporting terrorism," the government statement explained, adding that she had "allegedly been involved with a number of terrorism-related activities on behalf of ISIS from at least 2014."
Those activities included planning and recruiting operatives for a possible attack on a US college campus.
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Training children on using weapons & suicide belts
The charged woman was the appointed leader and organizer of an all-female ISIS military battalion, where she trained women in using AK-47 assault rifles, grenades, and suicide belts.
As battalion leader, the Justice Department alleges, she prepared the women to defend themselves during the 2017 siege of the ISIS stronghold of Raqqa in Syria.
Her other work included training children on how to use AK-47 rifles and suicide belts.
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ISIS attacks in the last five years.
At least six individuals had observed Fluke-Ekren's "alleged terrorist conduct from at least 2014 through approximately 2017," the department said.
The six said she had spoken of her desire to attack a US shopping mall by parking an explosives-packed vehicle in a basement garage.
"Fluke-Ekren allegedly considered any attack that did not kill a large number of individuals to be a waste of resources," the statement said.
ABC News, citing court papers, said Fluke-Ekren had moved to Egypt in 2008. She traveled frequently to the US over the next three years but had not been back since 2011.
If convicted of the charges, Fluke-Ekren faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.
