Aafia Siddiqui: An Objective Overview – by Anas Muhammad
President Asif Ali Zardari directed the government to provide legal assistance to Dr Aafia Siddiqui, after the jury found her guilty on all seven counts. The government of Pakistan has so far spent $2 million in defense of the ‘Lady Al Qaeda’ along with enormous amount of diplomatic efforts to bring her back to Pakistan. The legal assistance and the embassy services provided to Dr. Aafia Saddiqui is unprecedented and is probably the first ever for any Pakistani citizen held in United States on charges of terrorism. It was Pakistan’s diplomatic efforts that helped expedite the trial process and assured the family of Ms. Saddiqui that there will be justice.
It is certainly a rare and a strange case, the lady that was wanted by Pakistani and American authorities in 2003 has suddenly become the most valuable person to Pakistan. She is being called “daughter of Pakistan” a label that has come from no other than the right-wing political parties. Whats even more striking is that even terrorists such as Hakumullah Mehsud labeled her “sister in Islam.”
Those right-wing politicians are playing their usual anti-American narrative, using a purely legal issue and turning it into a political theater. But surprisingly the liberal coalition government has also taken the pressure and provided, a supporter of terrorism, the sort of attention she certainly did not deserve.
Aafia and her husband, Dr Muhammad Amjad Khan, divorced a year before she had disappeared. Her husband describes her violent nature and extremist views to be the reason of their divorce. Her activities and links to world’s most wanted terrorists had gotten her and her husband on the terror watch-list. Since her husband was not involved, and did not know of her links with terrorists, he was only questioned by the American authorities but never arrested.
United States intelligence agencies have said that Ms. Siddiqui has links to at least 2 of the 14 men suspected of being high-level members of Al Qaeda who were moved to Guantánamo in September 2006. NYT
There is no doubt about her acquaintances to the terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda, It was the reason she was being watched by agencies for a long time. The only reason she is not being charged under the allegations of terrorism is because, although she had intentions to, she had not yet attempted to commit an act of terror. If she didn’t have such motives, she would have never fired at an investigation officer, or have been ended up in Afghanistan after hiding for five years.
Before her arrest, U.S. authorities had called Siddiqui an al-Qaida sympathizer. She was never charged with terrorism, but prosecutors called her a grave threat who was carrying ”a road map for destruction” — bomb-making instructions and a list of New York City landmarks including the Statue of Liberty when she was captured. NYT
In order to avoid arrest she kept a low profile, and was said to be missing during the the five year period of 2003 to 2008. She was arrested, in Ghazni Afghanistan in 2008, after authorities became suspicious of her loitering outside the provincial governor’s compound. She was carrying instructions on making explosives and a list of New York landmarks, including the Statue of Liberty, the Brooklyn Bridge and the Empire State Building along with sealed bottles and glass jars filled with liquids and gels. She tried to escape the detention by shooting at the FBI officers, for which she was tried and convicted at United States District Court in Manhattan.
While in custody, on July 18, 2008, prosecutors said, Ms. Siddiqui grabbed an M4 rifle from a police station floor and fired on Army officers and F.B.I. agents. She was shot in the abdomen. NYT
It is believed that she was never arrested or tortured prior to 2008 incident. Her husband claims that the pictures that have been floating around the media with her lip badly hurt is an old picture. In an interview to The News:
He added that Dr Fowzia had similarly threatened him several years ago by taking a picture of Aafia while she was asleep after she injured her upper lip (by a milk bottle) in an accident. Dr Fowzia warned Amjad that if he tried to divorce Aafia, she would use the picture against him alleging him to be an abusive husband. “It was made to appear in the picture that Aafia was badly injured. Today, the same picture is being circulated in the media to claim that Aafia was tortured for years in Bagram,” he revealed.
Experts believe that it was her own behavior in the courtroom that contributed towards a negative perception of her. Her frequent outbursts and at times failing to cooperate with her own lawyers, ended up hurting her case. Due to her objections a few jurors had also stepped down from the bench, which leaves no room for any biases from the side of jurors.
I would suggest not wasting anymore time on this issue and let the American justice system take its course. I would also advice the Pakistani government of not spending any more taxpayer money for someone who clearly had bad intentions and is not innocent what-so-ever.
There is something fishy in this whole case:
Why is it so that every key member of any so-called Islamic Militant has a US Background [either educational, professional etc.etc.] either they were in USA, are in USA and had been associated with USA??? Date of kidnapping of Ms. Aafia and Mr KSM is to be noticed while keeping in mind their US background. Who were they working for???
‘MI handed Dr Aafia over to US’ By Faraz Khan Friday, August 08, 2008
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2008%5C08%5C08%5Cstory_8-8-2008_pg7_7
KARACHI: The Sindh Home Department has alleged Military Intelligence (MI) detained Dr Aafia Siddiqui in 2003 and then handed her over to United States-based agencies, Daily Times learnt on Thursday.
Six months after her divorce, she married Ammar al-Baluchi, a nephew of the 9/11 mastermind, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, at a small ceremony near Karachi. Siddiqui’s family denies the wedding took place, but it has been confirmed by Pakistani and US intelligence, al-Baluchi’s relatives and, according to FBI interview reports recently filed in court, Siddiqui herself. At any rate, it was a short-lived honeymoon. The mystery of Dr Aafia Siddiqui Declan Walsh The Guardian, Tuesday 24 November 2009http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/24/aafia-siddiqui-al-qaida
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is believed to have been born in either 1964 or 1965 in Kuwait into a family originally from the Pakistani province of Baluchistan, which borders Afghanistan. He is said to be fluent in Arabic, English, Urdu and Baluchi. He graduated in 1986 from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University in the US. Profile: Al-Qaeda ‘kingpin’ Page last updated at 14:04 GMT, Friday, 13 November 2009http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/2811855.stm
Terror mastermind captured – Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is thought to be the man who masterminded the attacks on 11 September. His capture in Pakistan was seen as a key success in the US fight to counter al-Qaeda. BBC News Online presents key video reports following the arrest. Tuesday, 4 March, 2003, 22:56 GMT http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/2820179.stm
Mohammed was captured on March 1, 2003, at a safe house in Rawalpindi, a garrison town near the Pakistani capital of Islamabad. The photograph that flashed across the world after the arrest was of a slovenly, overweight man. When Mohammed, an avid reader of press reports about him, later saw it, he was furious. ‘THE MASTERMIND’ For smug KSM, federal court could be perfect arena By Peter Finn Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, November 14, 2009 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2009/11/13/ST2009111300917.html?sid=ST2009111300917
In a surprise move this week, Pakistan’s federal minister of the interior, Faisal Saleh Hayat, listed a number of incidences in which members of the Jamaat-i-Islami (JI), the premier fundamentalist party in the country, had been tied to al-Qaeda, and called on it to “explain these links”.
Pakistan turns on itself By Syed Saleem Shahzad Aug 19, 2004http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/FH19Df05.html
“It was published in the national press on the very first day after this raid that the police conducted two raids in Rawalpindi and arrested Arabs. I believe that they arrested these people from some other location and showed them arrested at the residence of Ahmed Abdul Qudoos, who is a relative of a leader of the Jamaat-i-Islami’s women’s wing,” the chief of the Jamaat-i-Islami, Karachi, Dr Merajul Huda, told Asia Times Online. The Jamaat-i-Islami is Pakistan’s most prominent Islamic party and a part of an ultraconservative coalition that gained an unprecedented number of seats in last October’s elections, largely on the strength of a virulently anti-American platform. Khalid: A test for US credibility By Syed Saleem Shahzad Mar 6, 2003 http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/EC06Df04.html
CIA’s ‘preeminent source’
Is There More to the Capture of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed Than Meets the Eye? http://www.historycommons.org/essay.jsp?article=essayksmcapture
Missing US Connections [why in every such US Citizens are involved] Dr Aafia Siddiqui’s disappearance The following is a chronological account of Dr Siddiqi’s disappearance and the current status of the situation: 30 March 2004 Tuesdayhttp://www.dawn.com/2004/03/30/letted.htm#5
Dr Aafia Siddiqui’s husband breaks his silence after six years – Wednesday, February 18, 2009 – Claims most reports in the local media are false, suspects his two ‘missing’ children are in Karachi – By Aroosa Masroor http://www.thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=20404
’عافیہ نے جہاد کرنے پر زور ڈالا‘
احمد رضا
بی بی سی اردو ڈاٹ کام، کراچی
وقتِ اشاعت: Wednesday, 18 February, 2009, 21:32 GMT 02:32 PST
http://www.bbc.co.uk/urdu/pakistan/story/2009/02/090218_aafia_husband_interview_rh.shtml
Musharraf recalls in his memoir, “In the Line of Fire.” Within months Kiyani had unraveled the two plots and arrested most of the participants. He was rewarded in 2004 with a promotion to chief of ISI, and the next year his agency scored big with the arrest of Abu Faraj al-Libbi, the senior Qaeda lieutenant who masterminded the attempts on Musharraf’s life. A former U.S. intelligence official who dealt personally with Kiyani says the ISI “took a lot of bad guys down” under his leadership. REFERENCE: The Next Musharraf A Westernized, chain-smoking spy could soon become the most powerful man in Pakistan. By Ron Moreau and Zahid Hussain NEWSWEEK From the magazine issue dated Oct 8, 2007 http://www.newsweek.com/id/41883
Aamir,
I think the terror organizations usually try to recruit the people who they believe will be able to conduct the mission or at-least provide with valuable resources. So the people with links to US automatically become their favorite candidates. They know those people can travel to US and live there to provide the terrorists with information, resources, and / or conduct the attacks.
@Anas
Dear Anas,
That is not the case:
Q – 2 Why the Pakistani Military used to Support Taliban, Several Sectarian Outfits and Lashkar-e-Tayyaba before 911? And while the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan and the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi stand officially disbanded, their most militant son and leader, Maulana Azam Tariq, an accused in several cases of sectarian killing, contested elections from jail – albeit as an independent candidate – won his seat, and was released on bail shortly thereafter. Musharraf rewrote election rules to disqualify former Prime Ministers Mohammed Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto, and threatened to toss them in jail if they returned from abroad, which badly undermined both Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League and Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP). Musharraf has plainly given the religious groups more free rein in the campaign than he has allowed the two big parties that were his main rivals. In Jhang city, in Punjab province, Maulana Azam Tariq, leader of an outlawed extremist group called Sipah-e-Sahaba, which has been linked to numerous sectarian killings, is being allowed to run as an independent�despite election laws that disqualify any candidate who has criminal charges pending, or even those who did not earn a college degree. “It makes no sense that Benazir can’t run in the election,” says one Islamabad-based diplomat, “and this nasty guy can.”
References: And this takes me back to Pervez Musharraf’s first visit to the US after his coup. At a meeting with a group of journalists among whom I was present, my dear and much lamented friend Tahir Mirza, then the Dawn correspondent, asked Musharraf why he was not acting against Lashkar-e Tayba and Jaish-e Muhammad. Musharraf went red in the face and shot back, “They are not doing anything in Pakistan. They are doing jihad outside.” Pakistani neocons and UN sanctions Khalid Hasan This entry was posted on Sunday, December 28th, 2008 at 6:00 pm. http://www.khalidhasan.net/2008/12/28/pakistani-neocons-and-un-sanctions/ For http://www.newsline.com.pk/newsJan2003/cover1jan2003.htm – General’s Election By TIM MCGIRK / KHANA-KHEL Monday, Oct. 07, 2002 http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,361788,00.html
gooood one
I would like to congratulate you on a very perceptive account of this case. It is good to see a Pakistani critique and commentary on such matters. The case against Ms Siddiqui has been downplayed by the Western media but one of the most interesting accounts can be found at: http://www.debbieschlussel.com/16685/the-real-scoop-on-lady-qaeda-aafia-siddiqi-her-circle-of-boston-friends/ and to balance the ledger, the usual leftist conspiracy is located at http://www.democracynow.org/2010/2/4/ignoring_torture_claims_and_questionable_evidence
Questions about convicted Pakistani doctor Siddiqui
By Syed Shoaib Hasan
BBC News, Islamabad
Siddiqui maintained the charges against her were fabricated
Despite anger in Pakistan, the conviction of Pakistani doctor Aafia Siddiqui in a US court for the attempted killing of US agents is not going to come as a surprise to anyone.
Her supporters and family here have been vociferous in their protests against her trial, but even they were not hopeful about the outcome.
“We were expecting this,” Siddiqui’s uncle, Shamsul Hasan Farooqi, told the BBC.
Other family members were equally indignant.
“My sister is innocent – she has been tortured and detained for years,” Dr Fauzia Siddiqui said.
“She is a victim of American injustice.”
The jury at the New York court was unanimous in its verdict.
She may have eventually decided enough was enough and rejoined the jihadis
Anonymous local journalist
But the trial has far from resolved the many questions surrounding Siddiqui since her disappearance from Karachi on 30 March 2003.
On that day she drove out of her home with her three children and was not heard of again until 14 July 2008 when she was produced in front of a group of journalists in the province of Ghazni in Afghanistan.
Five unaccounted years
What happened in those five years is the subject of much speculation.
Afghan security officials said in 2008 that she had been arrested while planning to carry out “a terrorist attack”.
The authorities said she was carrying containers of unidentified chemicals and notes referring to “mass-casualty attacks” in New York.
While she was being questioned by US special agents in Afghanistan, US officials said she took up an unattended rifle and shot at the agents.
Although none of the US soldiers or agents in the room was injured in the incident, Siddiqui herself was shot.
She was subsequently flown to New York to be tried for the attempted murder of US officials. She was never charged in connection with any terrorist offences.
But Siddiqui’s family denies this version of events.
They say she was kidnapped in Karachi along with her children and then kept in a secret US prison.
They point to the fact that Siddiqui was only “arrested” after an outcry about her alleged detention in Afghanistan’s Bagram airbase.
Reports of her presence there were initially made by British journalist Yvonne Ridley – best known for her capture by the Afghan Taliban in 2001 and her subsequent conversion to Islam.
New facts
Siddiqui herself appeared to suffer from memory loss after she was taken to New York for the trial in August 2008.
It’s not clear how Siddiqui ended up at Bagram airbase
She later said she had been detained at a US secret prison but could not recall the details.
But there are facts about the case itself which puts all these claims in a different light.
Siddiqui divorced her first husband and is then said to have married Amar Al Baluchi.
He is the nephew of Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, the main planner of 9/11.
Whether she came under his influence is unclear. Both men are currently on trial in the US.
Mystery also surrounds the fate of two of Siddiqui’s three children.
In 2008 Siddiqui’s eldest son was handed over to Pakistani officials by Afghan authorities.
She also has another son and daughter – but their current whereabouts are unknown.
The only real clue to all these may lie in what her uncle, Shamsul Hasan Farooqi has said. His account first appeared in The Guardian newspaper but he has now told the BBC about her state of mind when he saw her last in 2008.
“Five years after she went missing, my niece reappeared on my doorstep on 22 January 2008,” he said.
“Someone had rung my door bell and then my servant came and told me a woman wanted to see me.
“When I went to meet her, I saw Aafia standing outside. She was wearing a burka and was clearly very scared.
“She said she wanted me to put her in touch with the Afghan Taliban.”
‘Clearly afraid’
Mr Farooqi explained that he used to carry out geological work in Afghanistan and had established contact with the Taliban in 1999.
Siddiqui grabbed a soldier’s rifle and opened fire on the agents
“But I told her that I was no longer in touch with them,” he said.
Mr Farooqi said that his niece also spoke about what happened after she went missing – he was told that she had been “held in various places at various times”.
“She had not seen her children for years – sometimes her captors said they were dead and sometimes that they had been sent abroad,” he said.
“She was quite clear that she was being held by Pakistani agencies. She spoke well of the Americans, but was clearly afraid of the Pakistanis.
“Before she came to see me, she said that she was being held in Lahore by a security agency.”
Mr Farooqi says that he immediately called his sister – Siddiqui’s mother – who flew in from Karachi the next day to meet her daughter.
He says Siddiqui stayed with them for two days.
Double agent?
“Throughout this time I had a strong feeling that she was being monitored in some way – through a device on her person or some other method,” he said.
When contacted by the BBC, her sister Dr Fauzia Siddiqui refused to comment on this account. But she had earlier denied it in an interview with The Guardian newspaper.
On the basis of this account and other reports of Siddiqui being sighted in Pakistan’s north-western tribal region, a different picture emerges.
“It could well be that Dr Siddiqui was working as a double agent after her disappearance,” says a journalist who has investigated the case.
“But she may have eventually decided enough was enough and rejoined the jihadis.”
She certainly would not be the first person to do so – a recent deadly attack in Afghanistan which killed seven CIA agents was reportedly carried out by an al-Qaeda double agent.
Much remains murky about the life of Siddiqui and it looks as if many of her secrets will go to jail with her.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/8499322.stm
Really nice post, man 🙂
Jeay Bhutto!
It is simply achieved that you simply libido doing what you reach since your crave authority be observed in intact your enterprise. Don’t ever let the fervour go on by the use of we’re right here always anticipating what you’re taking it in aliment whereas us. Thanks since your willingness to receipts your stunning masterpieces.
There is definately a lot to learn about this subject.
I really like all the points you’ve made.
Also visit my site; church expansion loan