From Kansas to Syria: the confusing journey of an American, accused of "support" for jihadism

Women at the Al-Hol camp in northeastern Syria, which hosts the families of Islamic State fighters (photo illustration).

REUTERS/Ali Hashisho

Text by: RFI Follow

2 mins

While President Joe Biden announced the elimination, Thursday, February 3, of the leader of the Islamic State group during a military raid in Syria, an American appeared the same day before a federal judge.

Just transferred from Syria, the latter is accused of having provided " 

 " to the terrorist enterprise and of having fomented plans for attacks against the United States.

During this first hearing held in Virginia, near Washington, she did not speak.

The magistrate ordered his continued detention.

Justice hopes to understand - during this trial - how and why this 42-year-old mother came to lead a female IS battalion.

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Allison Fluke-Ekren grew up on a farm in Kansas, a rural state in the middle of the United States.

After a trouble-free childhood, this brilliant student and former follower of the Methodist Church marries, divorces, remarries.

She had two children at the time, whom she explained in 2004 to have dropped out of school, disappointed with the American education system.

She adds that she wants to teach them Arabic.

Her husband, a

sniper

for the Islamic State group

Four years later, the family moved to Egypt, then to Libya and finally to Syria just after the "Arab Spring".

This is where, it seems, the tipping point takes place.

Her husband becomes a

for the Islamic State group.

She, for her part, uses her knowledge of weapons acquired on her parents' farm in the United States to train other women in the basics of handling assault rifles and explosive belts.

Witnesses also claim to have seen him train children, in particular his youngest son.

At the head of a battalion of women

In 2016, her husband died in a bombardment;

she will remarry to other fighters of the EI, while taking the head of a battalion of women.

Her career, then, is poorly known, in particular the conditions of her arrest and her return to the United States, a country to which she had not returned since 2011. We also do not know the fate reserved for her children.

At 42, she now faces up to 40 years in prison. 

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• United States

• IS

• Terrorism

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