A woman accused of leading an ISIS battalion and now criminally charged with supporting a terrorist organization has some connections to the area.
Allison Fluke-Ekren’s LinkedIn page lists her as being from Overbrook in Osage County as a teacher in the New Vision International School. No additional information about the school or her connection to it is immediately available, although she was listed as a homeschool teacher in a 2004 Lawrence Journal-World article.
The US Attorney’s Office in Alexandria, Virginia, says Fluke-Ekren had been involved in terror planning since at least 2014. She allegedly tried to recruit women for an all-female unit to attack a college campus in the United States and, according to authorities, discussed a potential terror attack on a shopping mall using a vehicle bomb in a basement or parking garage. She also allegedly led weapons training for women involved in ISIS.
A news release from the Federal Bureau of Investigation says Fluke-Ekren also led an Islamic State unit in Raqqa, a Syrian city, in 2016.
The criminal complaint was actually filed in 2019 and unsealed recently. She has her first appearance in federal court Monday afternoon. If convicted, Fluke-Ekren faces at least 20 years in federal prison.
