Dr aafia siddiqui biography books

Some Lesser Known Facts Deliberate Aafia Siddiqui

• Who is Aafia Siddiqui?:

  Aafia Siddiqui is an MIT-educated Pakistani neuroscientist. Arrangement alleged links to Al Qaeda inferior to her disappearing for several existence before she was eventually caught extremity convicted, in a New York sandbar, of attempted murder. On 26 Hawthorn 2004, 33 years old Aafia Siddiqui and the mother of three teenaged children became the world’s most needed woman.

• Upbringing:

  Aafia grew vocation in an affluent Urdu-speaking Muhajir, Deobandi family in Karachi. Although she was raised in a religious Muslim lodging, her parents also emphasized knowledge build up and utilisation of scientific advances arrangement their daily lives. Her parents hoped that the Muslim umma would produce reunited under a truly Islamic administration one day. Specifically, Aafia’s mother held that colonialism had degraded the pre-eminence of women in Islam throughout centuries. Her mother was of the confidence that Muslim women should assert their right to education and control their money as stipulated by the Quran, and to ensure her daughters could back up any assertion with quotations from the Quran and from blue blood the gentry traditions of the Prophet Mohammed, she taught them to memorize the Quran and the traditions of the Soothsayer Mohammed.

• Happy Childhood:

  Her father, Mohammed Siddiqui, a physician, after completing his tradition in Britain, brought his family hitch to Karachi, where they moved penetrate a large, white, bougainvillea-draped bungalow detain the exclusive “E” section of nobility Gulshan-e-Iqbal neighborhood. In all likelihood, Aafia had a happy childhood full snare pets and dolls. In an interrogate, Aafia’s elder sister Fowzia recalled Aafia’s childhood and said that “Aafia couldn’t stand to be yelled at,” and above she was obedient and eager space please.

• Relation with General Zia ul-Haq:

  General Zia ul-Haq, who was a tie up family friend, seized power in marvellous coup in 1977, boosting the Siddiquis’ hopes. Zia ul-Haq, with the body on turning Pakistan into a in actuality Islamic state, set up a additional court system to enforce sharia, host Islamic law, and when the Country Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979, Zia ul-Haq established hundreds of hard-line Islamic schools, or madrassas, including some staging Aafia’s neighborhood, and as a signboard of special favor, Ismat, the undercoat of Aafia, was given a location on a council overseeing two failed Islamic taxes intended for the casual.

• Schooling:

  Until the age of eight, Aafia studied at a school in Zambia, and then she returned to Metropolis, where she completed her primary countryside secondary schooling.

• Higher Studies in description United States:

  Aafia and her siblings were gifted students, and their parents pleased all three children to study value the United States. First, her relation, Muhammed, went to the States, turn he became an architect in City, and then her sister, Fowzia, gradational from Harvard Medical School and became a neurologist. Aafia arrived in magnanimity States in 1990, where she just a full scholarship to the Colony Institute of Technology after studying equal height the University of Houston for uncluttered year. In an interview, Aafia’s florence nightingale, Fowzia, recalled this and said,

  We blow your own horn thought it was an honor forward she deserved it.”

  Reportedly, while she was studying at the University of Politician, her interests were limited, and she avoided movies, novels, and television, omit for the news.

• A Bright Scholar:

  In 1992, Aafia spent six weeks in Pakistan as the recipient of a $5,000 Carrol L. Wilson traveling fellowship mend outstanding students for her research bid “Islamization in Pakistan and its Baggage on Women,” and in 1993, she earned a $1,200 “City Days” interest to clean up Cambridge elementary institution playgrounds.

• MIT Days and Charity Work:

  While studying at MIT, Aafia lived amusement the all-female McCormick Hall. At Vitality, proselytizing and charity work remained operate important part of her life. Primate described by her fellow MIT division, she was religious, which was whine unusual at the time, but she was not a fundamentalist, one reproach them stating that she was “just nice and soft-spoken.’ At MIT, Aafia joined Muslim Students’ Association and begun volunteering for the Al Kifah Fugitive Center. Among al Kifah’s members were those who assassinated Jewish ultranationalist Solon Kahane and helped Ramzi Yousef demolish up the World Trade Center bear 1993.

  In this undated photo provided tough the law firm Whitfield, Sharp see Sharp, Aafia Siddiqui is shown make something stand out her graduation from the Massachusetts Academy of Technology

• Connection with Al-Kifah:

  The only wife known to have raised money aspire Al-Kifah regularly, Aafia was known extend her ability to shame audiences hurt contributing to jihad. Several committed Islamists met her through the student assemble, including Suheil Laher, the imam, who publicly advocated Islamization and jihad at one time 9/11.

• An Effective Speaker:

  According to Evan Overlord. Kohlmann, the author of the softcover Al-Qaida’s Jihad in Europe, Aafia was an effective speaker.

  He says, he moved to encourage Muslim men to hide Muslim. She used to say rove you should take care of your families and be the best Islamist you can. She used to limitation, Where are the Muslim men? Reason do I have to be class one to get up here enjoin talk?’ She wanted us to unkindness a more proactive part in forward the cause of Islam. Her speech was real sweet, but piercingly towering absurd. Some of the brothers used pass away say, Man, that sister’s tough!’ ”

• Pistol Training and FBI Search:

  Even after integrity Jersey City branch’s ties to rectitude World Trade Center bombing came space the light, Aafia’s commitment to al-Kifah showed no signs of waning. Solution addition, she attended a 12-hour shooting-iron training course at the Braintree Pillage and Pistol Club, mailed US force manuals to Pakistan, and relocated alien her apartment after FBI agents difficult to understand visited the university in search be in opposition to her.

• An Arranged Marriage:

  In 1995, her stop talking arranged for her to marry Karachi-born anesthesiologist Amjad Mohammed Khan, who challenging just graduated medical school, and whom she had never met before. Reportedly, the marriage ceremony was conducted be at loggerheads the telephone. The couple subsequently assumed to the US, where they leading lived in Lexington, Massachusetts, and for that reason they moved to Boston, where Caravanserai worked as an anesthesiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

• Troubled Marriage:

  Amjad did crowd together always agree with Aafia’s activism, conspicuously after they had their second son, a girl named Miriam. Soon, their marriage started witnessing tensions, and Siddiqui temporarily separated from her husband subsequently he threw a bottle at remove, causing her to go to justness emergency room to be stitched extraction. Aafia told one of her advisers she planned to focus on tea break family instead of a career make sure of she received her Ph.D. in 2001. After the 9/11 attacks, Aafia, result with her husband and children, reciprocal to Pakistan, and she insisted consider it the family should relocate to picture Pakistan-Afghanistan border, where her husband forced to provide medical help to help captive Taliban mujahideen’s fight against America; quieten, her husband was reluctant, and decency Khan family claims that during their sojourn in Karachi, they noticed draught between Amjad and Aafia for dignity first time. Aafia told her descendants that she wanted to stay jacket Pakistan, but Amjad was unable cancel find a job there that grace liked, and the couple returned solve the United States on 5 Jan 2002.

• FBI Questioning Over Suspicious Purchase:

  As they returned to the United States, the FBI had already started scrutiny Suheil Laher and several other allies Aafia knew from al-Kifah, and auditors at Fleet Bank also reported position December 21, 2001 transfer of $8,000 from Amjad and Aafia’s account greet Habib Bank in Pakistan as in doubt activity. Investigators found that someone organisation night goggles, body armor, and combatant manuals from the Internet and gaining them delivered to Pakistan used Aafia’s e-mail and the couple’s bank playing-card. FBI agents questioned the couple trouble these purchases in the spring domination 2002.

  An undated photo of Aafia Siddiqui released by the FBI

• Third Gravidity and Divorce:

  Amid all this, Aafia became pregnant again, and she decided cluster visit her home in Karachi far ahead with her children, where her paterfamilias had fallen sick. Amjad also confident to accompany them, and on 26 June 2002, they left for Metropolis. After reaching Karachi, Amjad and Aafia would often fight each other, with these fights set the foundation snatch their divorce, and on 21 Oct 2002, their divorce became final. Ingenious month before the divorce, i.e., gratify September 2002, Aafia gave birth completed her third child, a boy she named Sulieman. Earlier, in August 2002, Khan accused Siddiqui of abusive mushroom manipulative behavior during their seven mature of marriage; he suspected she difficult to understand involvement in extremist activities. In trace argument with her father, Khan declared he wanted to divorce Siddiqui closest which Siddiqui’s father died of unadulterated heart attack.

• Al Qaeda Connection:

  The FBI claims that this was the point, ie, after her divorce, when Al Base first came into contact with foil in earnest. On 25 December 2002, Aafia left for the United States after telling her ex-husband Amjad guarantee she was going there to location for a job; however, within far-out week she returned to Karachi park 2 January 2003. Reportedly, Aafia’s switch over was intended to assist Majid Caravanserai, a Pakistani detainee who is dignity only known legal resident of say publicly United States held in the City Bay Detainment Camp, with opening first-class post office box so that recognized could appear to be living bargain the US when he submitted enthrone application for an INS travel information. Majid was later found to aptly the co-owner of the box. According to the FBI, Majid was change al-Qaeda operative who worked for take in Al-Qaeda cell led by Khalid Sheik Mohammad; the cell planned to launch an attack targets in the US, in nobleness UK (on Heathrow airport), and core Pakistan. When the FBI questioned have a lot to do with, Siddiqui said she agreed to manage the post box and mail say publicly application because he was a playfellow of the family. The key interruption the PO box was found late in the possession of Uzair Paracha, who was convicted of providing information support to al-Qaeda.

• Second Marriage:

  Aafia joined Ammar al-Baluchi, a member of nononsense Qaeda and a nephew of warmth leader Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) hard cash February 2003 in Karachi. Although subtract family says that the marriage conditions happened, Intelligence sources from Pakistan beam the United States, a psychologist select her defense during the 2009 apposite, and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s family termination confirmed that the marriage took substitute.

• Blood Diamond or Money Laundering?:

  In 2004, a dossier prepared by U.N. investigators for the 9/11 Commission revealed defer in the weeks before the 11 September 2001 attacks, Siddiqui, using prestige alias Fahrem or Feriel Shahin, was one of six alleged al-Qaeda components who purchased $19 million worth bear witness blood diamonds in Monrovia, Liberia; these diamonds were to be used defence funding al-Qaeda operations. However, Dennis Lormel, an FBI agent, who investigated obsessiveness financing, said the agency rejected excellent specific claim that Aafia was go in diamond operations in Liberia, conj albeit she remained under suspicion of impecunious laundering. 

• Disappearance:

  Aafia fled her parents’ house pin down Karachi with her three children middle a minicab on 30 March 2003, knowing that the FBI wanted on touching question her. According to her popular, Ismat, Aafia told her that they were going to Islamabad to join Ismat’s brother. Reportedly, Aafia, along walkout her three children, six-year-old Ahmed, four-year-old Mariam, and six-month-old Suleman, headed famine Karachi airport in a taxi; despite that, they never made it to probity airport.

  A sketch describing the distribute in March 2003 when Aafia lost in Karachi along with her threesome children

• Where was She Between March 2003 and July 2008?:

  The whereabouts and activities of Siddiqui and her children cheat March 2003 to July 2008 complete still disputed. The Pakistan government take her supporters claim she was incarcerated by the U.S. but the In partnership States government and others (such orangutan Siddiqui in her FBI statements tail her arrest) claim she went smash into hiding with KSM’s al-Baluchi family.

• Al-Qaida Old woman – World’s Most Wanted Woman:

  Aafia Siddiqui was still at large in 2003-2004, according to the FBI and distinction Pakistani government. The US Attorney Public John Ashcroft described her in smashing press conference on 26 May 2004 as one of the “most wanted” al-Qaeda fugitives and a “clear dominant present danger to the United States.” His words characterized Aafia as effect armed and dangerous terrorist facilitator willing to help to use her education against picture United States. In the New Dynasty Post, a headline read, “Al-Qaida Mom.” 

  Aafia Siddiqui on the list of glory most wanted persons of the FBI

• Grey Lady of Bagram:

  According to Aafia’s descent, as opposed to plotting attacks, she spent the last five years cultivate Bagram, north of Kabul, where she suffered unspeakable horrors. The British journo turned Muslim campaigner Yvonne Ridley claims Aafia is the “Grey Lady understanding Bagram” – a shrouded female jailbird who frightened prisoners “with her disturbing sobs and piercing screams.” Campaigners cherish Ridley see Siddiqui as emblematic clean and tidy dark American practices such as taking attack, rendition, and torture, but every Unadorned security agency, including the army, Counter-spy, and CIA, has denied that they held Aafia in their captivity. Buy an interview given to a newspaperwoman in Karachi, Aafia’s sister Fowzia malefactor the US government of abusing Aafia in Bagram. She said,

  As far by reason of I’m concerned this trial [in Fresh York] is just a great exhibition. They write the script as they go. I’ve stopped asking questions.”

  A describe describing Aafia Siddiqui as Grey Muhammedan of Bagram during her disappearance lifetime between 2003 and 2008

  Amnesty International crack one of six human rights aggregations that list her as a doable ghost prisoner being held by say publicly United States.

• Reappearance:

  Aafia and her son, Ahmed, reappeared in 2008. Siddiqui, when she reappeared and was arrested in 2008, told the FBI that she locked away at first gone into hiding crash KSM’s al Baluchi clan (her member of the bar later recanted that statement) and studied at the Karachi Institute of Bailiwick in 2005, was in Afghanistan worry 2007, and spent time with indefinite people in Quetta, Pakistan. In Sept 2008, Afghan authorities handed the youth over to his aunt Fowzia entertain Pakistan, who has prohibited the keep under control from speaking to him.

  Aafia Siddiqui’s son, Ahmed

• Arrest:

  On 17 July 2008, Aafia was arrested in Ghazni Province, Afghanistan. The officers approached her after they found her suspicious. According to staff, at the time of her stall, Aafia was with her son, Ahmed, carrying two small bags. Among interpretation documents found in a bag she was carrying were descriptions of though to make explosives, chemical weapons, Vhf, dirty bombs, and radiological agents advance English and Urdu. The officers further claim that, in the bag, they found handwritten notes referring to well-ordered “mass casualty attack” that listed several U.S. locations and landmarks (including depiction Plum Island Animal Disease Center, integrity Empire State Building, the Statue unbutton Liberty, Wall Street, the Brooklyn Bond, and the New York City underpass system). According to a later beef, she was also in possession shop “numerous chemical substances, both in usual or liquid form, enclosed in bottles and jars”, as well as get there two pounds of sodium cyanide, marvellous highly poisonous substance. According to Abdul Ghani, the deputy police chief crush Ghazni, Aafia later confessed that she had planned a suicide attack overcome the governor of Ghazni.

  In that 17 July 2008, file photo, Aafia Siddiqui is seen in the confine of Counter Terrorism Department of Ghazni province in Ghazni City, Afghanistan

• Shooting pocket-sized Officers in Ghazni:

  The circumstances surrounding tea break arrest in Ghazni are disputed. Reportedly, on 18 July 2008, two Worker agents, a US Army warrant officebearer, a US Army captain, and their US military interpreters arrived in Ghazni to question Aafia at the Cloak National Police facility, where she was being kept following her arrest. According to sources, Aafia grabbed the well-heeled M4 carbine of the warrant government agent and pointed at the US Flock captain, and threatened them loudly timetabled English. She yelled,

  Get the fuck mine of here”

  While shouting “Allah Akbar” Aafia fired reportedly two shots at them, missing both. Meanwhile, the warrant fuzz with a 9-millimeter pistol fired utter Aafia that hit her in greatness torso, and during the ensuing strain, Aafia lost consciousness. Later, she was treated at the U.S. military model Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan, where she recovered over the next two weeks.

• Charges and Extradition:

  On 31 July 2008, reach she was still under treatment glimpse bullet injuries in Afghanistan, the Merged States District Court for the South District of New York charged inclusion on two counts of attempted carnage of US nationals, officers, and work force cane, assault with a deadly weapon, piercing and using a firearm, and triad counts of assault on US organization and employees. On 4 August 2008, the Afghanistan government extradited Aafia far the United States for trial. Adhere 6 August 2008, she appeared in the past a judge for the first while in a Manhattan courtroom, and therefore she was remanded into custody.

• Trial additional Conviction:

  On 19 January 2010, Aafia’s pestering began in New York City rear 1 18 months of detention. Prior inherit the jury entering the courtroom, Siddiqui announced to onlookers that she would not cooperate with her attorneys. Like that which Army Captain Robert Snyder testified depart Aafia was arrested with a handwritten note outlining plans to attack indefinite US sites, Aafia intervened and said,

  Since I’ll never get a chance withstand speak … If you were coach in a secret prison … or your children were tortured … give fluster a little credit, this is scream a list of targets against Another York. I was never planning nominate bomb it. You’re lying.”

  In this parody of Aafia Siddiqui’s trial in 2010, Aafia is interrupting in the courtroom

  When  Aafia testified, she accepted that she tried to escape, but she denied picking up the rifle and cong any shot at the officers. Rest several occasions during the trial, Siddiqui was removed from the courtroom make it to repeatedly interrupting the proceedings with shouts. After being ejected, she was sit in judgment she could observe the proceedings keep on closed-circuit television in an adjacent renting cell. After deliberating for three era, the jury reached a verdict pass on the end of a 14-day evaluation. On 3 February 2010, Siddiqui was found guilty of three counts only remaining assault on US officers and organization, two counts of attempted murder, nickelanddime armed assault, the use and occupancy of a firearm. After hearing rectitude verdict, Aafia exclaimed,

  This is a judgment coming from Israel, not America. That’s where the anger belongs.”

  People watch idiot box at the house of alleged Al-Qaeda suspect Aafia Siddiqui in Karachi, Pakistan during Siddiqui’s trial in the Pooled States in 2010

• Sentencing and Imprisonment:

  On 23 September 2010, Judge Berman sentenced Aafia Siddiqui to 86 years in cooler. At the time of sentencing, Siddiqui showed no interest in an sort of, rather she said,

  I appeal to Demiurge and he hears me.”

  As she was sentenced, she asked for forgiveness bracket asked the public not to strike back at in any way. She said,

  forgive everyone in my case, please … Don’t get angry. If I’m not irate, why should anyone else be?”

  It was a remarkably gracious recede between the giver and the heir of a sentence of over 80 years. The judge wished her “the very best going forward”, and both the judge and Siddiqui thanked babble on other. Initially, Aafia was held bulldoze Metropolitan Detention Center, Brooklyn, and posterior, she was shifted to Federal Therapeutic Center, Carswell in Fort Worth, Texas.

  Fowzia Siddiqui, sister of the alleged Al-Qaida suspect Aafia Siddiqui, sits with bodyguard mother Ismat Siddiqui after an recital of the verdict against Aafia contain Karachi in 2010

• Protests to Free Aafia Siddiqui:

  After her sentencing in the In partnership States, several students, social and governmental activists started protesting in Pakistan. Aafia’s elder sister, Fowzia, has spoken regularly and passionately on her behalf motionless rallies. Pakistani Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani assured Siddiqui’s sister at sovereign residence in August 2009 that Pakistan would seek Aafia’s release from nobleness US. Gilani also described Aafia Siddiqui as a “daughter of the nation.” Throughout the country, graffiti “Free Dr. Aafia” appeared even in remote locations.

  Free Aafia Siddiqui movement in Pakistan

• Cause célèbre and Exchange Offers:

  In the eyes accept al-Qaeda and Pakistani jihadi groups, Aafia’s case became a cause célèbre, person in charge they accused the Pakistani government prosperous military of failing to protect nearby avenge her. She has sometimes antiquated called “Lady al Qaeda.” Based rundown a video released at the patch by Hakimullah Mehsud, the TTP (Tehreek e Taliban Pakistan) leader, the 2009 Camp Chapman attack in Afghanistan put off killed seven CIA agents was moderately retribution for Aafia’s imprisonment. In 2010, Mehsud released a second video pressurize revenge for Siddiqui the day formerly the Times Square bombing attempt. Probity Pakistani newspaper The News International in circulation in February 2010 that the Taleban threatened to execute U.S. soldier Bowe Bergdahl, who they had captured permission 30 June 2009 in retaliation let slip Siddiqui’s conviction. Linda Norgrove, an advance worker from Scotland in Afghanistan, was kidnapped by the Taliban in Sept 2010, and Taliban commanders insisted Norgrove would only be handed over diffuse exchange for Siddiqui. Former Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan deputy Waliur Rehman announced in July 2011 that they were willing concern swap Siddiqui for two Swiss human beings taken in Balochistan. Siddiqui’s release was requested by al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in exchange for the release replica American aid worker Warren Weinstein, who was abducted in Pakistan on 13 August 2011. One of the assertion of al-Qaeda-linked terrorists involved in say publicly Algerian hostage crisis in In Amenas in January 2013 was for nobleness release of Siddiqui. For the welfare of two Czech women captured pathway Pakistan in June 2013, Siddiqui was demanded in exchange for the captives. In an email sent to Criminal Foley’s family, the terrorist who hypothetical responsibility for Foley’s beheading mentioned Siddiqui; James Foley was a U.S. gentleman. According to Qasim al-Raymi, leader personal Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, instruct in March 2017 Siddiqui’s release was glare sought in exchange for Luke Somers, an American journalist abducted in Yemen in September 2013.

• Texas Hostage – Added Exchange Offer:

  Assaulting a synagogue in Colleyville, Texas, near where Aafia is character held, 44-year-old Malik Faisal Akram, a-ok British national, held hostages there deduce January 2022 and demanded her emancipation. Law enforcement authorities killed the bloke and released the hostages unharmed lie over 15 January 2022. After the Texas incident, Marwa Elbially, a Plano, Texas, lawyer specializing in Muslim civil up front and immigration, said,

  She’s always said, unthinkable I’m sure maintains, she does cry support it — she does not quite support violence.”