American Woman Who Led Daesh Battalion in Syria Sentenced to Prison
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – A Kansas woman who led a Daesh (ISIL or ISIS) battalion in Syria was sentenced to 20 years in prison after her own children denounced her in court.
Allison Fluke-Ekren, 42, admitted that she led the Khatiba Nusaybah, a battalion in which roughly 100 women and girls – some as young as 10 years old – learned how to use automatic weapons and detonate grenades and suicide belts.
One of Fluke-Ekren’s daughters was among those who said she received such training. The daughter and Fluke-Ekren’s oldest son both urged the judge to impose a maximum sentence.
They said they were physically and sexually abused by their mother, and in letters to the court described the mistreatment in horrific detail. Fluke-Ekren denied the abuse.
The daughter, Leyla Ekren, said “lust for control and power” drove her mother to drag the family halfway across the world to find a terrorist group that would allow Fluke-Ekren to flourish, during a victim impact statement she gave at the hearing.
She said her mother became skilled at hiding the abuse she inflicted. She described an incident in which her mother poured lice medication all over her face as a punishment and it started to blister her face and burn her eyes. Fluke-Ekren then tried to wash the chemicals off her daughter’s face, but Leyla resisted.
Prosecutors say the abuse she inflicted on her children from a young age helps explain how she went from an 81-acre (33-hectare) farm in Overbrook, Kansas, to a Daesh leader in Syria, with stops in Egypt and Libya along the way.
First assistant US attorney Raj Parekh described Fluke-Ekren as an “empress of ISIS” whose husbands rose to senior ranks in the terrorist group, often only to be killed in fighting.
Daesh invaded Syria in 2014, unleashing a campaign of bloodshed and destruction against the country.
The terror outfit overran huge swathes of the Syrian territory during lightning advances.
Syria's allies, Russia and Iran, however, rushed to the country's support, respectively providing the Syrian military with aerial backup and military advisory assistance.
The combined effort helped Damascus reverse the Takfiris' gains until the outfit was eventually defeated in late 2017.
Daesh’s remnants, though, keep staging sporadic attacks throughout Syria, attempting to regroup and unleash fresh violence against the nation.