Washington — The Kansas lady accused of touring to Syria in assist of the Islamic State was ordered detained pending trial on Thursday following her arrest late final month.
Allison Fluke-Ekren, described in charging paperwork as a mom and teacher-turned ISIS battalion chief, was final within the U.S. on or about January 8, 2011, authorities journey information present, earlier than in the end rising in Syria in 2014.
As soon as there, in accordance with one in all not less than six authorities witnesses who say they interacted with the defendant, Ekren allegedly offered a plan of assault to a paid U.S. overseas authorities supply.
That plan, prosecutors say, was for Ekren and different members of the ISIS neighborhood in Syria to "costume like infidels" and assault an American faculty campus with a backpack filled with explosives. The assault was in the end placed on maintain, court docket paperwork clarify.
Throughout an interplay with one other authorities witness in Syria as described in court docket filings, Ekren is accused of presenting an assault whereby she may park a automobile filled with explosives on the primary flooring of a parking storage and detonate the bomb with a cellphone set off.
"Any assault that didn't kill numerous people," the described mom of younger youngsters allegedly advised the federal government witness, was a "waste of sources."
That assault on the parking storage was additionally stopped after Ekren's then-husband is claimed to have objected.
Charging paperwork describe Ekren's a number of husbands and their alleged connections to the Islamic state. Authorities witnesses stated one in all her husbands was "the emir…of the snipers for ISIS," one other was an ISIS fighter from Bangladesh.
By 2016, in accordance with a authorities witness, Ekren was pregnant, had youngsters, and was married to the Bangladeshi fighter. In 2014, one other informant alleged one of many defendant's youngsters, roughly 5 or 6 years previous on the time, wielded a machine gun.
But it surely wasn't simply her personal youngsters amongst whom Ekren allegedly promoted gun use. She was additionally the chief of an all-female ISIS battalion and taught ladies how one can defend themselves in opposition to ISIS enemies, prosecutors allege.
She was "appointed chief and organizer of an ISIS army battalion situated in Syria, often known as the Khatiba Nusaybah, with a view to prepare ladies on using automated firing AK-47 assault rifles, grenades, and suicide belts," a authorities submitting says.
"Fluke-Ekren was 'off the charts' and an '11 or a 12' on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being extraordinarily radicalized," stated a authorities witness as described in court docket filings.
"In line with the identical witness, over 100 ladies and younger ladies acquired army coaching from Fluke-Ekren in Syria on behalf of ISIS."
Ekren, they wrote, "wished to die in Syria as a martyr."
As for her American household, prosecutors stated on Monday that Ekren's mom, father, stepmother, and two grownup youngsters all requested that she not make any contact with them from the Virginia jail by which she is being held.
In court docket Thursday, Ekren, sporting a inexperienced jail uniform, masks, and head overlaying, didn't object to the federal government's request for her detention.
Prosecutors briefly acknowledged that she labored for "a particularly violent and callous terrorist group" earlier than Choose Ivan Davis agreed to jail the defendant.
Neither Ekren's protection attorneys nor prosecutors commented on the case following Thursday's listening to.