A Kansas woman who led an all-female Islamic State battalion while living in Syria was sentenced to 20 years in prison, the maximum possible sentence, after her own children denounced her in court and detailed their mistreatment. tipped.
Allison Fluke-Ekren, 42, admitted that she led the Khatiba Nusaybah battalion, where some 100 women and girls, some as young as 10, learned to use automatic weapons and detonate grenades and suicide belts.
One of Fluke-Ekren’s daughters was among those who said they received such training. Both Fluke-Ekren’s daughter and eldest son urged the judge to impose the maximum sentence.
They said their mother physically and sexually abused them both. They described the mistreatment in detail in letters to the court. Fluke-Ekren denied committing the abuses.
During a hearing in which she submitted a statement on the impact of crimes on victims, the daughter, Laila Ekren, said the “lust for control and power” led her mother to drag the family halfway across the world to run into a terrorist group that allowed Fluke-Ekren to prosper.