WASHINGTON: A US court has sentenced an American woman to 20 years in prison for forming and leading an all-female Islamic State (IS) militant battalion to fight on the terrorist group's behalf in Syria, the Justice Department announced.
Anadolu Agency reported Allison Fluke-Ekren, 42, pleaded guilty in June and admitted to conspiring to provide material support or resources to a foreign terrorist organisation.
She specifically acknowledged forming Khatiba Nusaybah in which she trained more than 100 women and girls, some as young as 10, to fight on IS's behalf to defend its former capital of Raqqah in Syria, according to the department.
Fluke-Ekren, a trained teacher and convert to Islam from the state of Kansas, is the first American woman to be successfully prosecuted for holding a leadership role in the international terror group, it reported.
Court documents say Fluke-Ekren moved to Egypt with her second husband, Volkan Ekren, a now deceased member of the Ansar al-Sharia terrorist group, in 2008 before moving to Libya in 2011. In 2012, she traveled from Libya to Türkiye and then to Syria, which was in the midst of a spiraling conflict.
Her husband became the IS leader for snipers in Syria in 2014, and around that time, she spoke about her desire to stage an attack on the US, a witness told the court. In 2016, she was appointed to found and lead a "women's center" in Raqqah, where she would train women and girls in the use of AK-47 assault rifles, grenades and suicide belts.
Khatiba Nusaybah formally began operations in February 2017 as IS's territorial holdings began to collapse in Syria. Raqqah fell in October of that year.
Fluke-Ekren attempted to flee, telling someone to inform her family that she died in Syria with the intent of evading capture, according to her plea agreement. She was brought to the US in January after being held in custody in Syria. -- BERNAMA