- Drafting
- BBC News World
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image source, Alexandria Sheriff’s Office
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The story of how Allison Fluke-Ekren went from being a school teacher in the state of Kansas to being suspected of commanding a female battalion of the self-styled Islamic State (IS) remains a mystery to US authorities.
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But through testimonies and some documents obtained by the BBC, we can shed some light on how the radicalization of the 42-year-old woman who today faces a trial for terrorism and could spend decades in prison took place.
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Larry Miller, who was Ekren’s science teacher as a teenager in Topeka, Kansas, told the BBC he was shocked to learn of his ties to the radical organization.
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He says he fondly remembers her as a brilliant student during the years she attended the college where she taught.
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“She was a very, very good student. She was smart and had a sense of humor,” he says. “Her parents were very supportive.”
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Miller adds that 15 years ago he received an email from Fluke telling him how much he admired him as a teacher. “It was a very nice letter, saying that he had a love of science and nature, and that he was going to get a teaching degree.”
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image source, Larry L Miller
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“She never did anything to tell me she wanted to harm another living thing,” Miller says, recalling a time Fluke caught a lizard on a field trip with his classmates, carefully holding it up for his classmates to see. they could study.
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“I can’t understand how someone with such a love of nature and people could do something like that,” says Miller.
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Decades later, Fluke would have become a fervent follower of IS’s extremist ideology, say BBC journalists Tara McKelvey and Boer Deng.
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A witness told US prosecutors that the woman’s ratings were placed at “11 or 12 on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being extremely radicalized.”
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According to US authorities and public records seen by the BBC, Ekren spent time living with her then-husband and their children in the Middle East in the late 2000s.
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Documents show that he divided his time between his life abroad and some visits to Kansas.
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Between 2008 and 2010, Ekren recorded the details of what seemed like a normal life in a blog he kept.
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Authorities in the US say that at some point around 2012, Ekren entered Syria illegally and focused on a life dedicated to “terrorism”.
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According to authorities, Ekren married several IS members after her husband’s death and began training women and girls to use AK-47 rifles, detonate explosives and operate suicide vests.
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A witness said he saw one of Ekren’s children, 5 or 6 years old at the time, with a machine gun in the house where they lived in Syria.
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Ekren is currently facing “terrorism” charges in the state of Virginia.
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On Thursday, Judge Ivan Davis said Ekren would be held in custody without bail, explaining that the court considers several factors, including the safety of the local community and pretrial reports, when setting bail.
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Judge Davis said that Ekren did not reject the arrest.
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This week, Ekren received word that his family in the US, consisting of his parents and two adult children, requested that he be prohibited from contacting them.
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One of the witnesses currently cooperating with the US federal government was confirmed to be one of his relatives, although his identity was not disclosed.
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“How does someone like Allison, a traditional American girl, become a person who wants to go out and kill?” Miller asked.
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His conclusion is that he was owed “brainwash”.
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