It was July 17, 2008 and the place was Ghazni, Afghanistan. A woman clad in a burqa, accompanied by a 12-year-old boy, was cowering over the ground with two bags by her side. It was all too suspicious for the people for she could be carrying a bomb in her Burqa. Though what exactly about her looks or manners made her liable to pose a threat is shrouded under speculations and rumor. She was taken over by the police. The FBI was called in because one of their ‘Most Wanted’ had been found.
The woman was Aafia Siddiqui, labeled by the U.S. government as ‘The Lady Al-Qaeda’; and the boy was her son Ahmed. The bags she carried in Ghazni allegedly contained documents on the creation of explosives, chemical weapons, and other biological material. However, the locals’ accounts of the incident differ greatly.
This marked the beginning of one of the most dramatic and anticipated trials in the U.S. history which furthers the suspicion of American brutality and the fanatic attempt at “War on Terror”, depriving their suspects of the basic human rights. It intrigues the people who are divided in their opinions on Siddiqui’s involvement with Al-Qaeda and her alleged attempt to murder.
Who is Aafia Siddiqui?
MIT graduate Aafia Siddiqui is a Pakistani neuroscientist, who completed her PhD from the Brandeis University in US. She was academically gifted and described by many of her supporters as a righteous and kind-hearted woman. She had an affluent family background with close ties to the Military regime of General Zia-ul-Haq in Pakistan.
Her mother arranged her marriage with Dr. Amjad Khan, a Karachi-based anesthesiologist who came to live with her in the USA. Together, they founded ‘Institute of Islamic Research and Training’. They had three children: the eldest son Ahmed, daughter Mariyam, and the youngest Suleiman. Ahmed and Mariyam are currently living with their aunt in Pakistan; however the whereabouts of their third child, Suleiman, who was six months old when Aafia disappeared, remain unknown and he is presumed dead.
Aafia and Amjad divorced in 2002. Subsequently, Aafia reportedly married Ammar Baluchi, but their marriage also ended in a divorce a few months later. However, this marriage is denied by her family.
The Case
Aafia Siddiqui has been sentenced to 86 years in prison for her alleged attempt to murder and armed assault on U.S. military and law enforcement officers. The incident took place while Aafia, who was detained by the Afghan Authorities, was brought to be questioned by three members of U.S. military, two FBI agents, and two interpreters.
The allegations states that Aafia, who was held “unsecured” behind the curtains “unbeknownst” to the U.S. personnels, grabbed the M-4 Rifle placed on the ground by the Warrant officer and began firing it, exclaiming her intent to “kill Americans”. In response, one of the officials shot Aafia in the abdomen, critically injuring her.
Excellence and Accolades
Aafia was known among her peers for her religious devotion, engagement in activities promoting Islam, and charity work. Those who knew or met her described her as charming, intelligent, religious, soft-spoken, kind etc. but never someone with a penchant for terrorism. Her fellow students describe Aafia as quiet, studious and religious but not a fundamentalist.
She was involved in Islamic activism and was an excellent academic. In 2001, she presented her thesis titled ‘Separating the Components of Imitation’. Aafia, like her siblings, was a gifted student who excelled in every institution she attended, as a result she got the chance to study at some of the most prestigious colleges. She was a recipient of $5,000 ‘Carrol L. Wilson travelling fellowship for outstanding students’ as a part of which she travelled to Pakistan to research on the topic ‘Islamization and its Effects on Women’. She also went on to win $1,200 ‘City Days’ Fellowship to clean the Cambridge Elementary School playgrounds.
During her time at MIT, she was a part of Muslim Student Association (MSA), an organization active in U.S. and Canadian Universities aiming to maintain Islamic communities in colleges, providing them support, coordination and fostering leadership development.
Anyone would, undeniably, call such a woman smart and religious. However, in the context of the contentious “War on Terror”, the combination of intelligence and religious devotion, when one is Muslim, is difficult for some in the West to fathom. This could be the reason that Aafia siddiqui’s intelligence was often translated by the West into the plausibility of Bioterrorism.
Terrorism Allegations and the Five Lost Years
Things started going downhill for Aafia after 9/11 when the FBI began searching for the couple for questionings regarding their online purchases. Her relation with her husband also deteriorated and they eventually ended the marriage.
This started the trail of suspicions and allegations against Siddiqui, many reportedly supported by her estranged ex-husband. Her links to major Al-Qaeda terrorists were found and her marriage to Ammar Baluchi, denied by Siddiqui’s family, is suspense.
Major Al-Qaeda convict Khalid Sheikh Mohammad attested to the involvement of Aafia while being a prisoner under CIA’s interrogation, a process Amnesty International describes as torturous. The techniques used by the U.S. for torturing suspects, according to organizations such as Amnesty International, “destroy people, corrodes the rule of Law, undermines the criminal justice system and erodes public trust in public institutions and the state they represent”. The convicts were subjected to ghastly torment and held for years without being proven guilty by a court. Thus, the legitimacy of statements extracted under such conditions is questionable.
What furthers the ambiguity of her involvement are the five lost years from 2003 to 2008, during which her whereabouts remain unclear. Possibilities range from her taking refuge with al-Baluchi family, preparing material for biological warfare and working with terrorist organizations to being held at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan as a ghost prisoner while being tortured severely.
Attempt to Murder?
The circumstances surrounding the incident that took place at the police compound in Afghanistan are dubious enough to raise several questions:
- Why was a terrorism suspect left unsecured behind the curtains?
- Why would an officer leave his rifle on the ground unattended in the presence of a potential criminal?
- Why were the claims of Afghan officers, who asserted that US officers shot Aafia “mistakenly” assuming her to be a suicide bomber, conflicting?
Interestingly, despite the U.S. claiming evidence and statements extracted from the prisoners (under questionable conditions), Aafia was not convicted for her part in terrorism. Rather, the case was that of attempted murder and assault. So, major questions remain unanswered: What happened to her and her children during the five lost years? What was the truth of her whereabouts from 2003 to 2008? Were the ISI and CIA complicit in her disappearance? What were the contents inside the bags that the US alleged contained chemical weapons and documents on explosives? What happened to her youngest son? The US would not need to explain, and the world will never know unless Aafia comes out, which seems impossible given her 86 years long detention.
If Aafia Siddiqui had links to Al-Qaeda and was such a dangerous terrorist and partaker in the 9/11 attacks as claimed, why was she not incarcerated as one?
