An American jihadist who was one of the few female battalion leaders of the Islamic State (ISIS) terror group was sentenced on Tuesday to 20 years in prison by a court in Alexandria, just outside Washington D.C.
Allison Fluke-Ekren (42), nicknamed 'Umm Mohammed al-Amiriki,' pleaded guilty in June to “providing material support to a terrorist enterprise.” At her sentencing hearing, she asked federal judge Leonie Brinkema to show “compassion” and sentence her to just two years in prison. “I deeply regret my choices,” she pleaded, her hair covered with a black scarf.
However, prosecutor Raj Parekh stressed that she had in effect become an ISIS "empress," brainwashing young girls and training them to kill. He added that she had also made her own children suffer. One of her daughters, whom she forced to “marry” an ISIS fighter when she was just 13, said her mother was motivated by a desire for control and power. “I want people to know the kind of person she is,” Leyla Ekren said nervously.
Between 2012 and 2019, Allison Fluke-Ekren supported jihadi organisations in Libya, Iraq and Syria, where she provided military training to more than 100 women. In June, she admitted, among other things, that she taught her female companions, some as young as 10 or 11, how to handle assault rifles and explosive belts.
Asked to rate her on a scale of radicalisation from one to ten, someone who knew her at the time said she was “off the grid” and deserved an 11 or 12, according to the prosecution.
