- India restrict Pakistan to 105-8 in Women's T20 World Cup
- England target repeat of Pakistan Test whitewash
- Penrith Panthers win fourth straight NRL title after downing Storm
- Weary Sinner happy for day off after battling into Shanghai last 16
- Pakistan's Masood warns England still a force without Stokes
- Madrid's Carvajal to miss several months after serious knee injury
- Israel pounds Lebanon ahead of Hamas attack anniversary
- Two elephants die in flash flooding in northern Thailand
- Sabalenka targets world number one and Wuhan hat-trick
- Toddler among 4 dead in migrant Channel crossings
- Tunisia votes with Saied set for re-election
- Bagnaia sets 'example' with Japan MotoGP win to cut gap on Martin
- Intense Israeli bombing rocks Beirut ahead of war anniversary
- Mozambique vote: no suspense but some disillusion
- Austrian rapper channels anti-racist rage in Romani hip-hop songs
- Ohtani magic powers Dodgers over Padres in MLB playoff thriller
- Five of the best: Pakistan-England Test thrillers
- Man sets arm on fire as marches across US mark Gaza war anniversary
- Vietnam's young coffee entrepreneurs brew up a revolution
- Trump rallies at site of failed assassination: 'Never quit'
- Too hot by day, Dubai's floodlit beaches are packed at night
- Is music finally reckoning with #MeToo?
- Fans hail Trump's 'guts' as he returns to site of rally shooting
- Lebanon state media says 'very violent' Israeli strikes hit south Beirut
- Guardians maul Tigers, miracle Mets rally in MLB series openers
- Lebanon state media says Israeli strikes hit south Beirut
- Miami on track for MLS record points after win in Toronto
- Madrid beat Villarreal but Carvajal suffers knee injury
- Madrid beat Villarreal to move level with Liga leaders Barcelona
- Monaco take top spot in Ligue 1 with win at Rennes
- French rugby player on rape charge whistled but 'serene' on return
- Madrid beat Villarreal to level Liga leaders Barca
- Thuram treble fires Inter past Torino and up to second
- 'Fight': defiant Trump jets in to site of rally shooting
- Toddler among 3 dead in migrant Channel crossings
- Mexico City's new mayor sworn in with pledges on water, housing
- Israel on alert ahead of Hamas attack anniversary
- Guardians maul Tigers in MLB playoff series opener
- Macron criticises Israel on Gaza, Lebanon operations
- French rugby player whistled but 'serene' on return amid ongoing rape case
- Kovacic stars as Man City sink Fulham to get title bid back on track
- Retegui hat-trick fires five-star Atalanta to hammering of Genoa
- Heavyweights Australia, England off to World Cup winning starts
- Visiting UN refugee agency chief decries 'terrible crisis' in Lebanon
- Spinners come to party as England defeat Bangladesh at T20 World Cup
- Search continues for missing in deadly Bosnia floods
- Man City sink Fulham to get title bid back on track
- France's Auradou whistled on Pau return in Perpignan loss amid ongoing rape case
- A 'forgotten' valley in storm-hit North Carolina, desperate for help
- Arsenal hit back in style after Southampton scare
From Kansas school teacher to Islamic State battalion leader
On a scale of one to 10 of jihadist radicalization, an American woman alleged to have led an all-female Islamic State battalion in Syria was described by someone who knew her there as an "11 or a 12."
Allison Fluke-Ekren, 42, a school teacher who grew up on a farm in Kansas, made a brief appearance in a federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, on Thursday facing terrorism charges.
Fluke-Ekren, who was dressed in a black headscarf and a green T-shirt reading "Alexandria Inmate," was ordered to be held in detention until trial.
The trajectory of the midwestern woman who was born Allison Brooks and came to be known by the nom de guerre Umm Mohammed al-Amriki has been outlined in court documents, her personal blog and newspaper articles.
While other Americans traveled to Syria and Iraq to join the now defunct Islamic Caliphate, most were men and Fluke-Ekren is the rare American woman who occupied a senior position in the ranks of the Islamic State.
Brooks grew up in Topeka, Kansas, and was remembered by one of her former teachers as a bright student who was "good at everything."
"Never would any of us who knew her back then ever thought she would end up as she has today," Larry Miller, a retired science teacher, told the Topeka Capital-Journal. "That's not the person I knew when I knew her."
Miller served as the wedding photographer for Brooks' marriage in a Methodist church to a local man named Fluke.
They had two children who are now adults and who have told prosecutors they do not want any contact with their mother.
Brooks went on to marry a man named Volkan Ekren with whom she had at least three more children.
Now known as Fluke-Ekren, she studied at the University of Kansas and then earned a master's degree in teaching from a college in Indiana.
In a 2004 article in the Lawrence Journal-World, Fluke-Ekren is shown wearing a headscarf while home-schooling her two eldest children. Their studies included learning Arabic from a tutor three days a week.
Fluke-Ekren and her husband moved to Egypt in 2008. Her personal blog still available online shows pictures of the family celebrating birthdays, taking a cruise on the Nile and visiting the Pyramids.
The family moved to Libya in 2011 and lived there for a year, according to the criminal complaint against her.
A former friend identified only as Farouk told ABC News she believed Fluke-Ekren became radicalized while living in the Middle East.
"She was very sympathetic toward the Islamic states, and how they were doing the right thing and how we needed to, you know, support the women and children," Farouk said. "She really felt people were being harmed by a larger force."
- 'Engage in violent jihad' -
In 2012, Fluke-Ekren moved to Syria along with several of her children because she "wished to engage in violent jihad" and live in the "land of Sharia," according to the criminal complaint.
While in Syria, Fluke-Ekren, who is fluent in Arabic, translated speeches by Islamic State leaders to be disseminated online, the complaint said.
She also organized an all-female IS military battalion known as the Khatiba Nusaybah to train women in the use of AK-47 assault rifles, grenades, and suicide belts, it said.
An unidentified cooperating witness who interacted with Fluke-Ekren in Syria was asked how radicalized she was. "Off the charts," they replied, -- an "11 or a 12" on a scale of one to 10.
The same person said more than 100 women and young girls received military training from Fluke-Ekren in Syria.
According to the complaint, Fluke-Ekren sought to recruit operatives for an attack on a US college campus or a shopping mall using an explosives-packed vehicle.
"Fluke-Ekren allegedly considered any attack that did not kill a large number of individuals to be a waste of resources," it said.
Fluke-Ekren's husband, an IS sniper trainer, was killed in Syria in 2015 "attempting to conduct a terrorist attack on behalf of IS," according to the complaint.
It is not clear from the charging documents whether this was Volkan Ekren or whether she had remarried.
In 2016, she married a Bangladeshi IS member who specialized in drones, according to the complaint. One of his projects was attaching chemical weapons on drones.
He died shortly afterward and four months after his death, Fluke-Erken married a "prominent IS military leader" who was responsible for IS's defense of Raqqa, the former IS capital.
According to the Justice Department, Fluke-Ekren was "apprehended in Syria" and flown to the United States on January 28 from an undisclosed location on a US government plane.
If convicted of providing material support to IS, she faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
O.Johnson--AMWN