Allison Fluke-Ekren breaks down sobbing after admitting in court to conspiring to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organisation, with prosecutors saying she trained women and young girls in Syria and spoke openly about her desire to launch attacks in the US.
An American woman who prosecutors say led an all-female battalion of Islamic State group militants in Syria has pleaded guilty in a case that a prosecutor called a first of its kind in the United States.
The guilty plea resolves a criminal case that came to light in January after Fluke-Ekren, 42, who once lived in Kansas, was brought to the US to face accusations that she led an IS unit of women and young girls in the Syrian city of Raqqa and trained them in the use of automatic rifles, grenades and suicide belts.
It is the first prosecution in the US of a female Islamic State battalion leader, said First Assistant US Attorney Raj Parekh.And some of the girls, who were as young as 10 or 11 years old, may wish to speak at Fluke-Ekren's sentencing hearing, Mr Parekh said. "Some of them may wish an opportunity to address the court because we would argue that there is lifelong trauma and pain that has been inflicted on them," Mr Parekh said.Charging documents in the case trace Fluke-Ekren's travels and activities in the Middle East over the last decade, including a move with her second husband to Egypt in 2008, though they don't shed light on what inspired her alleged allegiance to foreign militant groups.
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