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A4 U.S. NEWS
Monday 31 January 2022
Feds: Kansas woman led all-female Islamic State battalion

By Matthew Barakat rectly training women and
Associated Press children in the use of AK-47
(AP) — A woman who assault rifles, grenades, and
once lived in Kansas has suicide belts to support the
been arrested after fed- Islamic State’s murderous
eral prosecutors charged aims,” Parekh wrote.
her with joining the Islamic According to court pa-
State group and leading pers, Fluke-Ekren moved to
an all-female battalion of Egypt in 2008 and traveled
AK-47 wielding militants. frequently between Egypt
The U.S. Attorney in Alexan- and the U.S. over the next
dria, Virginia, announced three years. She has not
Saturday that Allison been in the U.S. since 2011.
Fluke-Ekren, 42, has been Prosecutors believe she
charged with providing moved to Syria around
material support to a terror- 2012. In early 2016, her hus-
ist organization. band was killed in the Syr-
The criminal complaint was ian city of Tell Abyad while
filed under seal back in trying to carry out a terror-
2019 but made public Sat- ist attack, prosecutors said.
urday after Fluke-Ekren was Later that year, prosecu-
brought back to the U.S. tors say she married a Ban-
Friday to face charges. Her gladeshi ISIS member who
alleged participation in the The U.S. Courthouse is seen in Alexandria, Va., Thursday, Sept. 2, 2021. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen, File) specialized in drones, but
Islamic State had not been he died in late 2016 or early
publicly known before Sat- That affidavit from FBI Spe- who have been charged old, holding a machine 2017. Four months after that
urday’s announcement. cial Agent David Robins with terrorism offenses and gun in the family’s home in man’s death, she again
Prosecutors say Fluke-Ekren also alleges that Fluke- some who were held at Syria. remarried a prominent Is-
wanted to recruit opera- Ekren became leader of prison camps for former Is- “Fluke-Ekren has been a lamic state leader who was
tives to attack a college an Islamic State unit called lamic state members. fervent believer in the radi- responsible for the Islamic
campus in the U.S. and dis- “Khatiba Nusaybah” in the A detention memo filed cal terrorist ideology of ISIS State group’s defense of
cussed a terrorist attack on Syrian city of Raqqa in late Friday by First Assistant U.S. for many years, having Raqqa.
a shopping mall. She told 2016. The all-female unit Attorney Raj Parekh states traveled to Syria to com- She told one witness in 2018
one witness that “she con- was trained in the use of that Fluke-Ekren even mit or support violent jihad. that she instructed a person
sidered any attack that did AK-47 rifles, grenades and trained children how to use Fluke-Ekren translated her in Syria to tell Fluke-Ekren’s
not kill a large number of suicide belts. assault rifles, and that at extremist beliefs into action Family she was dead so the
individuals to be a waste In all, the affidavit cites ob- least one witness saw one by serving as the appoint- U.S. government would not
of resources,” according to servations from six different of Fluke-Ekren’s children, ed leader and organizer of try to find her, according to
an FBI affidavit. witnesses, including some approximately 5 or 6 years an ISIS military battalion, di- Parekh’s memo.q

Deadly Colorado blaze renews focus on underground coal fires

killed at least one person. enne Indian Reservation. more destructive fire sea-
It’s still unknown what Across the U.S. at least 259 sons, experts say smolder-
caused the December underground mine fires ing coal fires will pose a
blaze that became the burned in more than a doz- continuing threat.
most destructive in Colo- en states as of last Septem- Such fires can be ignited
rado history, but Boulder ber, according to federal by lightning, humans and
County authorities have Office of Surface Mining even spontaneously at
said they’re investigating data. There are hundreds temperatures as low as 86
the area’s abandoned and possibly thousands degrees Fahrenheit (30 de-
coal mines as one of sev- more undocumented blaz- grees Celsius), said Jurgen
eral possible causes, along es burning in coal seams Brune a Colorado School
with power lines, human that have never been of Mines engineering pro-
activity and other possibili- mined, researchers and fessor. Many are impossible
ties. government officials say. to put out, slowly burning
Could smoldering coal Globally, such fires are also underground as the com-
Rowdy Alexander watches from atop his horse as a hillside have started such a fire? a problem, including in In- bustion feeds off a small
burns on the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation on Aug 11, History shows the answer is dia, Australia and South Af- amount of oxygen present
2021, near Lame Deer, Mont. (AP Photo/Matthew Brown, File) yes, with at least two Col- rica. In China, the world’s in the coal, he said.
orado blazes in the past largest coal producer, an “Covering it up and trying
By Matthew Brown and Col- state’s first mining inspector 20 years blamed on mine estimated 10 million to 200 to take away the oxygen
leen Slevin deemed the blaze “impos- fires that spread to the sur- million tons of the fuel an- from the fire puts out most
Associated Press sible to extinguish.” face. And in Montana this nually burn or are left inac- fires. Not for coal fires,”
(AP) — A fire raging in an Nearly 140 years later two past summer slow-burning cessible by fires, according Brune said.
underground Colorado fires still smolder in the now- coal reserves fanned by to the U.S. Geological Sur- Underground coal seams
coal field in 1883 sent so abandoned coal field near winds sparked a pair of vey. burn unpredictably and
much smoke pouring from Boulder — the same area blazes that burned a com- As climate change leads can break through to the
cracks in the ground that where a wildfire last month bined 267 square miles (691 to drought across larges surface without warning
the scene was likened to destroyed more than 1,000 square kilometers) on and swaths of a U.S. West al- long after a fire starts, he
burning volcanoes and the homes and buildings and around the Northern Chey- ready seeing longer and said.q