Willie R. Tubbs, FISM News
Saturday, the U.S. Justice Department unsealed a two-year-old criminal complaint in which it was revealed an American woman had been charged with providing and conspiring to provide material support to ISIS.
According to a Justice Department release, Allison Fluke-Ekren – a native of Kansas who has used numerous aliases including Allison Elizabeth Brooks, Umm Mohammed al-Amriki, and Umm Jabril – was originally arrested and charged in 2019, but faces trial starting Monday.
Fluke-Ekren was originally captured in Syria but was transferred into FBI custody Friday so that she could be extradited for trial in a Virginia federal court.
The official complaint alleges Fluke-Ekren engaged in a litany of anti-American activity from 2014-19.
“[A witness attests] Fluke-Ekren would hear about external attacks taking place in countries outside the United States and would comment that she wished the attack occurred on United States soil instead,” the release reads.
In the prosecution’s motion to have Fluke-Ekren remain in prison while standing trial, one witness is said to have described Fluke-Ekren as “off the charts” radicalized, rating her an “11 or 12” on a scale of 1-to-10.
Among the many allegations against Fluke-Ekren is that she hoped to stage a massive attack on a U.S. college campus or mall.
“To conduct the attack, Fluke-Ekren allegedly explained that she could go to a shopping mall in the United States, park a vehicle full of explosives in the basement or parking garage level of the structure, and detonate the explosives in the vehicle with a cell phone triggering device,” the release reads.
Fluke-Ekren also “allegedly considered any attack that did not kill a large number of individuals to be a waste of resources.”
While her desires to cause mayhem and suffering in America might never have come to fruition, or have even been feasible, prosecutors said Fluke-Ekren committed actual acts against the U.S. through her role as leader of Khatiba Nusaybah, an ISIS military group consisting entirely of women who were trained to use assault rifles, grenades, and suicide belts.
Fluke-Ekren is also accused of having trained children to use these same weapons, providing lodging and translation services to ISIS, and teaching courses in how to operate a vehicle equipped with an explosive device.
The DOJ also reports one witness “observed that the leaders of ISIS and the other members of the military battalion were proud to have an American instructor.”
A legal team comprised of prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia and the National Security Division’s Counterterrorism Section will prosecute the case.
Were Fluke-Ekren to be convicted, she would face a maximum of 20 years in prison.