Alison Fluke-Akren, 42, faces up to 20 years in prison after pleading guilty to terror charges at a US District Court in Alexandria, Virginia, in June.
After leaving her first husband, Fluke-Akren attended the University of Kansas, where she married a fellow student named Volkan Ekren and became a Muslim.
An American woman who grew up on a farm in Kansas, converted to Islam and joined the Islamic State in Syria, where she led an all-female military battalion, to provide aid to a foreign terrorist group Sentencing is due on Tuesday.
Alison Fluke-Akren, 42, faces up to 20 years in prison after pleading guilty to terror charges at a US District Court in Alexandria, Virginia, in June.
"For at least eight years, Fluke-Akren committed terrorist acts on behalf of three foreign terrorist organizations in war zones in Libya, Iraq and Syria," US Attorney Raj Parekh said in a pre-sentiment memo.
"Fluk-Ekren brainwashed young girls and trained them to kill," Parekh said. "She paved the way for terror, plunging her children into the unfathomable depths of cruelty by physically, psychologically, emotionally and sexually abusing them."
Parekh urged Judge Leonie Brinkema to serve a maximum sentence of 20 years, from her upbringing on an 81-acre (33-hectare) farm in Kansas for her apprehension in Syria after IS's 2019 territorial defeat. Traced the way to Fluke-Akren.
While other Americans traveled to Syria and Iraq to join IS, most were men and Fluke-Akren is the rare American woman to have held a senior position in the ranks of the now defunct Islamic caliphate.
Born Alison Brooks, she grew up in a "lovely and stable home" in Overbrook, Kansas, and was considered a "gifted" student, the US attorney said.
However, she dropped out of high school in her sophomore year, and married a local man named Fluke, with whom she had two children.
From that marriage her son testified anonymously that he and his siblings were abused by his mother for many years.
"My mother is a monster without love for her children, with no excuse for her actions," said her son, who is planning to attend Tuesday's sentencing in Alexandria. "In her hands is the blood, pain and suffering of all her children."
After leaving her first husband, Fluke-Akren attended the University of Kansas, where she married a fellow student named Volkan Ekren and became a Muslim. He later earned a teaching certificate from a college in Indiana.
They had five children together and adopted another after the child's parents were killed by suicide bombers in Syria.
'Extremist ideology and violence'
In 2008, the family moved to Egypt and in 2011 to Libya, where the US Attorney said, "Fluk-Akren's extremist ideology and the pursuit of training young women in violence to obtain positions of power and influence began. "
They were in Benghazi in September 2012 when the Islamic terrorist group Ansar al-Sharia attacked a US mission and CIA office, killing the US ambassador and three other Americans.
Fluk-Akren, a fluent Arabic speaker, assisted Ansar al-Sharia by "reviewing and summarizing the contents of stolen US government documents".
The family left Libya in late 2012 or early 2013 and moved between Iraq, Turkey and Syria, becoming deeply involved with IS and living in the group's Mosul stronghold for some time.
According to the US attorney, after the husband of Fluke-Akren - an IS sniper unit leader - was killed in 2015, he forced his 13-year-old daughter to marry an IS fighter.
Fluk-Akren, who adopted the name Umm Mohammed al-Amriqi after joining IS, would marry three more times and have four more children.
Her fourth husband was an IS military leader responsible for the IS defense of Raqqa in 2017.
In 2017, Fluke-Akren became the leader of a battalion of female IS members called "Khatibah Nussaibah," which provided military training to more than 100 women and girls, according to the US attorney.
"During the training session, Fluke-Akren instructed women and young girls about the use of AK-47 rifles, grenades and explosive suicide belts," Parekh said.
"One of those children, some of whom were as young as 10 or 11, had their own daughter."
