The hostage-taker at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville mentioned that he wanted to speak with Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani neuroscientist serving an...
The hostage-taker at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville mentioned that he wanted to speak with Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani neuroscientist serving an 86-year prison sentence for assault and attempted murder of a U.S. soldier in Afghanistan.
U.S. authorities say she worked as a courier for Khalid Sheikh Muhammad – the main architect of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. She was briefly married to his nephew, Ammar al-Baluchi, who is on trial at the U.S. naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, accused of funneling money to the hijackers. He faces the death penalty if convicted.
She came to the U.S. in 1990 to study, earning a degree in biology from MIT and a PhD from Brandeis University in behavioral neuroscience. She and her first husband returned to Pakistan with their children after the 9/11 attacks.fighters near the Afghan border and her husband disapproved, and they divorced in 2002.
During her second day in custody, she shot at FBI and Army interrogators with an M4 carbine one of them had placed on the floor. She was wounded when an officer returned fire. Siddiqui’s lawyer, Marwa Elbially, called her “one of the greatest victims of the so-called ‘war on terror’ kidnapping program that saw hundreds of innocent people kidnapped and held in U.S.-funded detention around the world.”“This latest antisemitic attack at a house of worship is an unacceptable act of evil,” said national deputy director Edward Ahmed Mitchell.