Headline

U.S. Woman Charged With Aiding IS, Planning Attacks

Published

4 years ago

January 29, 2022

An American woman who allegedly led an all-female Islamic State battalion in Syria has been charged with providing material support to a foreign terrorist group, the US Justice Department announced Saturday.

The woman, identified as Allison Fluke-Ekren, formerly of the US state of Kansas, had been named in a sealed criminal complaint filed in 2019 in a federal Virginia court, the government statement said.

Among other things, it said she had planned an attack on a US college campus and spoke of organizing a devastating attack on an American shopping mall.

The statement said the 42-year-old Fluke-Ekren — who has used at least five aliases — had been apprehended previously in Syria but was transferred into FBI custody on Friday.

She is expected to make her initial appearance before the US District Court for Eastern Virginia, in the Washington suburb of Alexandria, on Monday at 2:00 pm (1900 GMT), the statement said.

– All-female IS unit –
Fluke-Ekren traveled to Syria

“several years ago for the purpose of committing or supporting terrorism,” the government statement said, adding that she had “allegedly been involved with a number of terrorism-related activities on behalf of ISIS from at least 2014.”

Those activities included planning and recruiting operatives for a possible attack on a US college campus, the statement said, though it provided no further details.

It also said she was the appointed leader and organizer of an all-female IS military battalion, where she trained women in using AK-47 assault rifles, grenades and suicide belts. Called the Khatiba Nusaybah, the members were all married to male IS fighters.

As battalion leader, the Justice Department alleges, she prepared the women to defend themselves during the 2017 siege of the IS stronghold of Raqqa, Syria.

Her other work for IS, the department said, included training children in the use of AK-47 rifles and suicide belts.

The statement said at least six individuals had observed Fluke-Ekren’s “alleged terrorist conduct from at least 2014 through approximately 2017.”

They said she had spoken of her desire to attack an American shopping mall by parking an explosives-packed vehicle in a basement garage.

“Fluke-Ekren allegedly considered any attack that did not kill a large number of individuals to be a waste of resources,” the statement said.

ABC News, citing court papers, said Fluke-Ekren had moved to Egypt in 2008. She traveled frequently to the United States over the next three years but had not been back since 2011.

If convicted of the charges, Fluke-Ekren faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.

Women make up only about 10 per cent of people charged by the United States with supporting the Islamic State group, according to a study by the Program on Extremism at George Washington University. This is the first case involving someone accused of holding such a powerful position in IS.

AFP

Headline

Welcome Home, Israel Confirms Return Of 20 Hostages From Gaza

Published

20 hours ago

October 13, 2025

Editor

Israel said that the last 20 living hostages released by Hamas on Monday had arrived in the country.

“Welcome home,” the foreign ministry wrote in a series of posts on X, hailing the return of Matan Angrest, Gali Berman, Ziv Berman, Elkana Bohbot, Rom Braslavski, Nimrod Cohen, David Cunio, Ariel Cunio, Evyatar David, Guy Gilboa Dalal, Maxim Herkin, Eitan Horn, Segev Kalfon, Bar Kuperstein, Omri Miran, Eitan Mor, Yosef Haim Ohana, Alon Ohel, Avinatan Or and Matan Zangauker.

AFP

Headline

20 Members Of Gang Blacklisted By US Escape Guatemala Prison

Published

22 hours ago

October 13, 2025

Editor

Twenty members of a gang designated a “foreign terrorist organisation” by the United States have escaped from detention in Guatemala, a prison chief said Sunday.

The members of the Barrio 18 gang “evaded security controls” at the Fraijanes II facility, prison director Ludin Godinez said at a news conference.

He received “an intelligence report” on Friday warning about the “possible escape” from the prison, which is southeast of the capital, Guatemala City.

Godinez said they were investigating possible acts of corruption.

Washington last month blacklisted Barrio 18, an El Salvador-based gang which has a reputation for violence and extortion, as part of its crackdown on drug trafficking.

The US embassy in Guatemala condemned the prison escape as “utterly unacceptable.”

“The United States designated members of this heinous group as the terrorists they are and will hold accountable anyone who has provided, provides, or decides to provide material support to these fugitives or other gang members,” the embassy said on X.

It called on the Guatemalan government to “act immediately and vigorously to recapture these terrorists.”

According to Interior Minister Francisco Jimenez, there are about 12,000 gang members and collaborators in Guatemala, while another 3,000 are in prison.

The country’s homicide rate has increased from 16.1 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2024 to 17.65 this year, more than double the world average, according to the Centre for National Economic Research.

According to the Salvadoran government, the gangs Barrio 18 and Mara Salvatrucha, better known as MS-13, are responsible for the deaths of about 200,000 people over three decades.

The two gangs once controlled an estimated 80 percent of El Salvador, which had one of the highest homicide rates in the world.

Headline

South Africa Bus Crash Kills 40 Including Malawi, Zimbabwe Nationals

Published

23 hours ago

October 13, 2025

Editor

At least 40 people, including nationals of Malawi and Zimbabwe, were killed when a passenger bus rolled down an embankment in South Africa, a provincial transport minister said Monday.

The bus travelling to Zimbabwe crashed around 90 kilometres (55 miles) from the border on Sunday after the driver apparently lost control, Limpopo province transport minister Violet Mathye said.

“They are still working on the scene, but 40 bodies have already been confirmed to date,” Mathye told the Newzroom Afrika channel. The dead included a 10-month-old girl, she said.

Thirty-eight people were in hospital and rescuers were searching for other victims, she told eNCA media.

The bus was travelling from the southern city of Gqeberha, around 1,500 kilometres away, and its passengers included Malawians and Zimbabweans who were working in South Africa. The crash may have been caused by driver fatigue or a mechanical fault, the minister said.

South Africa has a sophisticated and busy road network with a high rate of road deaths, blamed mostly on speeding, reckless driving and unroadworthy vehicles.

AFP