Aafia Siddiqui: Terrorist or Victim?

Time is a cruel mistress. There are certain events throughout history that everyone remembers exactly where they were when it happened. If you’re old enough it may have been the JFK assassination or the first moon landing, but for the majority of Americans, the event that likely came to mind was the terrorist attack on 9/11.

However, while researching this story, one comes to a horrifying realization. There are people living in the United States right now who are old enough to vote and to drink who weren’t even alive when that happened. It’s not horrifying that they didn’t have to live through such a monumental tragedy, but it is horrifying how old that means the rest of us are all getting.

That said, it’s really hard to overstate just how significant an event 9/11 was. For many Americans, it was the first time we felt genuine concern that the oceans separating us from most of the world’s population may no longer be enough to keep us safe on US soil. Sure, there was that whole Cold War thing too, but deep down, most people didn’t think that either the US or Russia was actually crazy enough to start a full scale nuclear war.

The Cuban Missile Crisis undoubtedly would have been a frightening time in the US, but as scary as it was, surely cooler heads were going to prevail. The whole “mutual” part of mutually assured destruction meant that neither side was actually incentivized to launch a nuclear strike, so for the decades long Cold War it remained a largely abstract fear.

But this was something different. It was an attack against America on US soil, one that claimed the lives of almost 3,000 civilians. This created a massive cultural shift, fueled by nationalism and anti-Muslim sentiment reaching an all time high. According to data from the FBI, there were 28 reported hate crimes against Muslims in 2000. In 2001 that number shot up to 481, and almost all of them took place in the last 4 months of that year.

This continued in the years that followed, with bounties being placed on anyone who was believed to have been involved in the 9/11 attack. In 2003 when the United States and its “coalition of the willing” invaded Iraq, the US Defense Intelligence Agency revealed that they had designed and commissioned a deck of Iraq’s Most Wanted playing cards featuring the names, jobs, and faces of 52 of the most wanted people in Iraq to help soldiers remember all the people they were after.

Shortly after this announcement, the World Without Criminals Organization released a similar deck of cards featuring the names, faces, criminal allegations, and monetary bounties being offered by the FBI for 52 suspected al-Qaeda terrorists. It was certainly a weird chapter of history, but the people the FBI placed bounties on were supposed to be the worst of the worst.

Among the people caught up in all this anti-Muslim hysteria was Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani neuroscientist and MIT graduate who US Attorney General revealed as one of the seven most wanted al-Qaeda fugitives. To the United States and its allies, she was known as Lady Al-Qaeda and “the most wanted woman in the world”. But on the other side of the world, she was known as the Daughter of Pakistan, the “victim of all victims”, and Prisoner 650.

They argue that she was secretly held captive and tortured for five years before being officially arrested and sentenced on what they consider bullshit charges. In essence, they contend that Aafia was the innocent victim of what is now a decades long conspiracy to keep Aafia locked away forever. But which side is telling the truth, and why doesn’t either version of events make total sense?

The Disappearance

It began with a prayer. On March 1, 2003, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, better known as KSM, was captured about 20 km outside of Islamabad by Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), possibly as part of a joint effort with the CIA. KSM was the Head of Propaganda for al-Qaeda and was the architect of the 9/11 attacks, by his own admission. Immediately after being captured, he was taken from one CIA black site to another for torture before being shipped off to Guantanamo in 2006.

Early in his incarceration, possibly after his first bout of torture, KSM began praying. The name and opening line of his prayer was Allahumma Inni As’aluka Al’afiyah. It’s a general prayer for health and well being, but the last word there, “afiyah”, is where the Muslim name Aafia comes from. KSM’s American captors mistook this prayer as him implicating Aafia Siddiqui as a co-conspirator and member of al-Qaeda.

That sounds farfetched, but Aafia was already on the FBI’s radar for other reasons. As such, it’s unlikely but not inconceivable that such a sequence of events could have transpired. Also, the only possible source for that story would be KSM himself, so it’s plausible he did specifically name her then told that story to make it sound like he wasn’t ratting on people.

Regardless, the FBI suddenly became interested, and they put out a worldwide alert that Aafia was wanted for questioning. A few days after this alert went out, Aafia got into a taxi with her three children and left her parent’s house in Karachi, the capital of the Pakistani province of Sindh, to go visit her uncle in Islamabad. Karachi to Islamabad is a solid 16-18 hour drive, so the taxi was only meant to take them to the airport where they would then fly to Islamabad.

But she never arrived at her uncle’s house, and neither she nor her children would be heard from for the next five years. At least not by anyone in the public.

But in July of 2008, a press conference was held by British journalist Yvonne Ridley. Yvonne had been a writer for the Sunday Express back in 2001 when she was captured by the Taliban and held prisoner for 11 days. While she was in captivity, she vowed to read the Quran and study Islam if she was released, which she eventually was. She wound up converting to Islam, stating “What everyone forgets is that Islam is perfect; people are not.”

That statement is concerning as no religion is objectively perfect, so it may speak to her objectivity and bias in this matter.

Regardless, she had been investigating Guantanamo Bay and had somehow been allowed to film on location there for a documentary she was making with filmmaker David Miller. The documentary also included interviews with former inmates of Guantanamo, some of whom had been held in other locations before being transferred there.

One of those men had been secretly held in solitary confinement in Bagram Air Base, which was still controlled by the US at the time. According to this prisoner, the person in the cell next to him, officially identified as Prisoner 650, was Aafia. He never saw her, but the two were able to speak between their cells and she identified herself as Aafia Siddiqui.

There was already precedent for secret detentions like this as well. During the War on Terror, the US and Pakistan worked closely together, with Pakistan being officially declared a Major Non-NATO Ally of the US in 2004. There have been multiple attempts over the last ten years to revoke that status, but the two nations were on really good terms at the time. So in early 2007 when the government of Pakistan released over 100 people who had been listed as missing but were actually being held in CIA ghost prisons, it created the possibility that there could be other supposedly missing people who were being secretly imprisoned as well.

On July 17, less than two weeks after Yvonne’s press conference, Aafia suddenly reappeared in the city of Ghazni, Afghanistan where she was arrested for loitering and being generally suspicious. Accompanying her at the time was her son Ahmed.

Of course, Aafia claimed that she didn’t actually know whether or not the boy with her was her son at the time. Ahmed would have been 12 at this point, and Aafia hadn’t seen him in four years. DNA testing later confirmed it was her son, but allegedly she didn’t know when they were hanging around in Ghazni. On that day Aafia had been released from Bagram, sent to Ghazni with her son, and told to wait there so she could be reunited with her daughter, Mariam.

However, they made her son wear a heavy jacket with pockets full of fruit, even though it was summer so a jacket was unnecessary. After waiting seven hours, police were alerted to her presence. Not only had she been hanging around in one location for hours, her son was wearing what looked like it could be a suicide vest. Also, nobody was able to speak to Aafia as she only spoke English and Urdu, while the main languages of Afghanistan are Pashto and Dari.

She was arrested, though at the time the police didn’t know her identity. It was only after she was fingerprinted that she was identified as Aafia Siddiqui, and the next day US authorities came to take her into custody. She was taken to a meeting room that had a curtain as a partition for some reason, and she was left behind the curtain without any restraints.

Eventually two FBI agents, an army captain, an army warrant officer, and a couple interpreters entered the room. They were unaware that Aafia was standing behind the curtain, and she didn’t know who had just come into the room. According to a statement from Aafia, she looked around the curtain to see what was happening, at which point someone shouted “she’s loose” and shot her in the abdomen, causing her to pass out. She conveniently woke up just in time to hear one of the men say “we could lose our jobs”, referring to their actions of shooting an unarmed prisoner.

In order to save their own asses, they instead constructed a story in which the warrant officer sat down and placed his M4 rifle on the ground by the curtain. They claimed Aafia grabbed the gun and opened fire, yelling things like “Allah akbar” and “death to Americans”. She only got a couple rounds off, which missed, at which point one of the interpreters tried to wrestle the gun away from her. While she was distracted, the warrant officer shot her in the abdomen with his 9mm pistol, at which point she was disarmed.

Aafia was then transferred to a hospital in Bagram to be treated. While in the hospital she was interrogated by the FBI for an “average of eight hours” each day for ten days. She was also charged with assault with a deadly weapon, three counts of assault on US officers and employees, and two counts of attempted murder, including attempting to kill a United States Army Captain while engaged in official duties (which is an extraordinarily specific crime). On August 4, 2008, she was extradited to the United States for trial.

We’ll get to the trial later, but Aafia’s supporters found those charges to be highly suspicious. Part of the basis for detaining and questioning her following her arrest was a bag she was carrying that was allegedly full of plans to make biological and chemical weapons, targets in New York City that could be used for a “mass casualty attack”, and bottles of liquids and gels that could be used in making explosives or chemical weapons.

However, none of that was included in the trial. Despite allegedly carrying a bag that may as well have been labeled “I am a terrorist”, Aafia wasn’t brought up on any charges related to terrorism. She was only charged for the assault that took place in the Ghazni police station. There also wasn’t any forensics used in the trial, just eyewitness testimony, because the forensic evidence didn’t exist.

The gun didn’t have Aafia’s prints on it, there was no gunshot residue on her hands, clothes, or the curtain, and there was no evidence that the gun was ever fired.

That’s all more than a bit unusual, and it has lent a lot of credence to Aafia’s version of events in the eyes of Pakistanis. It certainly didn’t help that the only photo taken of her since 2003 showed the normally vibrant and smiling woman genuinely looking like she had spent years being tortured. She has become a rallying point among protestors, with numerous efforts since 2009 to have her returned to Pakistan, all of which have been unsuccessful.

But this is the story as it is told in Pakistan, the story of an innocent woman who was inexplicably railroaded by the US and incarcerated in a Texas prison often referred to as the “House of Horrors”. However, Aafia was already on the FBI’s radar long before KSM may or may not have said a prayer that sounded like it contained her name. So what exactly had she been up to during her time in the US that drew the attention of the FBI?

The Official Story

Aafia was born on March 2, 1972 in Karachi. Her father was a neurosurgeon and her mother was a teacher, social worker, and charity volunteer. Her sister described the family as being upper-middle class, something which afforded them a lot of opportunities when it came to education. Her parents were devout Muslims, though they also heavily emphasized science and technology.

Her mother was also a member of Pakistan’s parliament, and she fervently defended Islam fundamentalism in the face of opposition from uppity feminists. This caught the attention of family friend General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, who rewarded her with a position collecting and distributing Islamic taxes after he seized power as a military dictator.

Aafia was sent to Zambia for her early education, but she returned to Karachi at the age of eight to finish her education through high school. In 1990, she traveled to Houston to begin her undergraduate degree at the University of Houston. Her older brother was already there studying architecture, though after three semesters she moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts instead. It’s hard to say exactly why she decided to make such a drastic change, but she was likely offered a full scholarship by MIT.

Originally she planned to earn a triple major, but Aafia eventually settled on just getting her undergraduate degree in biology. And while she was at MIT, there were only two things Aafia seemed to care about: studying, and activism. She joined the Muslim Students’ Association where some of the other members got her involved with the al-Kifah Refugee Center.

It’s unclear whether or not he had founded it, but al-Kifah had certainly been controlled by Abdullah Azzam. Abdullah was the mentor of Osama bin-Laden and the founder of Marktab al-Khidamat, the precursor to al-Qaeda. Al-Kifah was the American wing of MAK, and though he died a couple years before Aafia joined the group, some of the members of the Muslim Students’ Association were said to still be under Abdullah’s spell.

Aafia become very involved in the group, giving speeches, doing recruiting, and even fundraising. It was said she was the only woman to ever fundraise for al-Kifah, as the group was full of rampant misogyny. However, she used that to her benefit. She was quoted as saying things like, “Where are the Muslim men? Why do I have to be the one to get up here and talk?” encouraging the men to take a more active role in advancing Islam.

But given its origins and what it turned into, it’s not surprising that al-Kifah was associated with violence as well. In 1990, a member from the organization’s central headquarters in Brooklyn murdered the founder of the Jewish Defense League. And in 1993, when Aafia was active in the group, the Jersey City branch was tied to the bombing of the World Trade Center that killed six people.

Not only did the ties to violence fail to dissuade Aafia from her involvement in the group, she criticized the Pakistani government for extraditing someone connected to the bombing to the United States. She sent an e-mail to the group condemning Pakistan’s actions and ending with a quote from the Quran that warned Muslims against befriending Jews or Christians.

Although none of her e-mails specifically advocated violence, her rhetoric still contained a very clear goal. In a guide she wrote for the Muslim Students’ Association, Aafia wrote, “that our humble effort continues, and expands… and more and more people come to the [religion] of Allah until America becomes a Muslim land.”

In 1995 she finished her undergraduate degree at MIT. But before she graduated, she took a brief trip back home to Karachi. While she was there, she caught the attention of the family of Amjad Mohammad Khan. He had just completed medical school and the two had never met, but Aafia and Amjad’s mothers arranged for the two to be married.

Aafia’s wedding was definitely not the romantic affair many dream of. Because she and Amjad weren’t arranged to be married until she had returned back to MIT, the wedding ceremony was conducted over the phone. The two still had never met at this point.

Aafia had been accepted to Brandeis University to study for a PhD in cognitive neuroscience, so Amjad took a job at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, part of Harvard Medical School. The fact that Aafia’s sister Fowzia was earning her PhD in neurophysiology from Harvard at the time may or may not have helped Amjad get the job.

Their son Ahmed was born in 1996, so about a year after they were married. Two years later, they had a daughter, Mariam. By that point they were living in the Mission Hill section of Roxbury, so that Amjad could be closer to his work. Aafia was doing well in school, and she remained highly involved with her activism. Perhaps too involved.

On paper, the marriage of Amjad and Aafia had made sense. They were both from wealthy enough families, he was a medical doctor, and she was working towards being a neuroscientist. However, despite all her preaching about how great Islam was for women and how feminism was kinda dumb, she didn’t seem particularly interested in being a wife. At least not according to Amjad, who may or may not be a reliable narrator.

Amjad felt that Aafia was too devoted to activism and jihad rather than to the family, which caused trouble for their marriage. And also there was that time she had to go to the emergency room to get stitches after he threw a baby bottle that hit her in the mouth. And according to Aafia’s lawyer, her colleagues at Brandeis said she would frequently come into the lab with bruises on her face. So maybe Aafia was a neglectful wife and mother, or maybe Amjad was a massive piece of shit.

Or maybe it was a little of both, since they aren’t mutually exclusive.

Regardless of the issues in their marriage, Aafia completed her PhD in 2001. However, once she had finished her degree she told the faculty that she wanted to devote herself to her family rather than her career. She spent the summer not only with her own children but by essentially running a daycare for other neighbourhood children in their apartment as well.

Amjad spent that summer taking courses at Harvard’s School of Public Health. He was supposed to take classes in the fall semester as well, but the fall semester would have started in September and this was in 2001.

Following the 9/11 attack, Aafia wanted to get the Hell out of the US and go back to Pakistan immediately. She said that she and the children were being harassed and threatened, which is absolutely plausible based on the statistics mentioned earlier, and she felt the family wasn’t safe there. The only problem was that Amjad was expecting a bonus from the hospital in a few months, so he wanted to at least wait until he got that check before leaving.

Aafia refused to stay, instead demanding that she be allowed to go back to Karachi with the children and saying that he could join them in a few months. And that’s ultimately what happened, because whatever Aafia wanted was what always happened in their marriage. While they were in Karachi, the US began its invasion of Afghanistan.

Before the year was over, the Taliban was overthrown and they and al-Qaeda were kicked out of the country. It was a swift and decisive operation. With al-Qaeda and the Taliban temporarily thwarted, many of their members fled to Karachi to regroup. Among them was KSM, who was looking for US citizens and visa holders who could move undetected throughout the United States to carry out new attacks. However, Aafia and Amjad’s trip to Karachi didn’t last long.

Amjad wasn’t able to find suitable work, so he wanted to return to the hospital in the US. For once Aafia relented, and in January of 2002 the couple moved back to Boston. But when they returned, the FBI was already looking into them. Aafia had strong ties to organizations that were responsible for terror attacks and that had associations with al-Qaeda.

Many of her friends from al-Kifah had already been questioned by the FBI about general concerns, but there was a much more specific concern they had with regards to Aafia and Amjad.

In December, Boston’s Fleet Bank had noticed an unusual transaction in which $8,000 was transferred from the couple’s account to Habib Bank in Pakistan. Seeing as they were living in Pakistan at the time, that’s not necessarily unusual. It’s the sort of thing that might automatically trip the bank’s fraud detection, but looking into it and seeing that they were visiting family in Pakistan at the time makes it much less suspicious.

However, around that same time someone using Aafia’s e-mail address and the couple’s joint bank account ordered $10,000 worth of night vision goggles, body armor, and military manuals, including a manual on how to make C-4.

The FBI didn’t come to question the couple about the purchase until spring of 2002, and allegedly their questions were mainly focused on Amjad, not Aafia. That claim came from a lawyer working for Aafia though, so it’s unclear how accurate it is. Seeing as she was the one who was far more involved in activism and was also the one whose e-mail was used to purchase the equipment, one would think she would be a larger focus. Then again, it appears to have been another couple years before people really talked about the potential inclusion of women in Islamic terrorism, so it’s possible she was only questioned as an afterthought.

Regardless, the story Amjad gave was that he had purchased the equipment for use in big game hunting in Pakistan, as that sort of equipment was illegal there. Trophy hunting is big business in Pakistan so that could theoretically explain the goggles and maybe the armor, but C-4 is not particularly useful in hunting Himalayan Ibex. After the visit from the FBI they returned the items, and they had also scheduled another interview with the FBI for a few weeks later. Later on Amjad would retract the hunting story and claim he bought all that stuff to make Aafia happy.

Talking to the FBI again was not something that would make Aafia happy. And also her father had fallen ill, which honestly may have been a larger motivating factor. She said she wanted to return to Pakistan before their scheduled appointment with the FBI, and Amjad agreed. They returned to Karachi in June of 2002, at which point Aafia was pregnant again. But Amjad would never see that child.

Their marriage had never really worked in the first place, and things were only getting worse with time instead of better. That summer, Amjad went to the bank to dispute a mysterious $2,000 withdrawal from their bank account, only to be informed that Aafia had come to the bank to take out the money. That was the last straw, and Amjad declared his intention to divorce her, claiming that she was abusive and manipulative.

He brought a letter to Aafia’s parents explaining that he repudiated her and they would be divorced, which resulted in a shouting match between Amjad and Aafia’s father. And then her father dropped dead of a heart attack.

There was probably some amount of time between those two events, but it wasn’t a lot as Aafia’s father died in August of 2002. The family blamed Amjad for his death, and they have refused to speak to him or his family ever again. Amjad filed a lawsuit seeking visitation rights and the ability to pay child support, though as far as can be determined this lawsuit was never resolved.

After the divorce, Aafia gave birth to her third child, a son she named Suleman. Amjad never got to meet his other son, but Aafia felt that his attempts to remain in the children’s lives were a form of harassment. She claimed staying in Pakistan and dealing with that would be too much for her, and that she wanted to go back to the US.

And on Christmas Day that year she did fly back, though not to Boston where she had spent most of her time in the US. Instead she flew to Baltimore, where her sister Fowzia was now living and working. Fowzia said that Aafia visited both Johns Hopkins University and the State University of New York to interview for jobs, but this was more than a little suspicious.

It was Christmas break, so both schools were closed during the one week in which Aafia was visiting. Seeing as she had completed both her undergraduate degree and doctorate in the US, one would think she would know that all of the schools shut down at Christmas.

However, following the March 1 arrest of KSM, a different explanation for what happened was presented. Aafia wasn’t the only co-conspirator he had named, there were actually a bunch of them, many of whom were promptly arrested. Among them was a man named Majid Khan, who had been living in Baltimore.

Majid had been given refugee status by the US, but he had left the country and gone to Pakistan without getting the documentation he would need to return. Allegedly the real purpose of Aafia’s visit to Baltimore was to open a P.O. Box and to list Majid as a co-owner. Another man named Uzair Paracha would then travel to Baltimore and impersonate Majid.

Uzair was to use Majid’s credit cards, put money in his bank account, and otherwise create a paper trail that would make it appear as though Majid was still living in the country.

He was also to call INS and put in a request for the papers Majid would need in order to return to the US. Those papers were to be mailed to the P.O. Box Aafia had opened, and once they arrived Uzair was meant to close out the P.O. Box. That seems like an awful lot of trouble to get someone back in the country, so either they were really good friends or this was all part of a nefarious plan. In this case, Majid was tasked with detonating a bunch of underground gas tanks that were located around Baltimore.

To facilitate this, Uzair’s father created a fake import-export company that would be used to smuggle C-4 into the US hidden in 40 foot containers of textiles. KSM promised to invest $200,000 into the business in exchange for Uzair’s help in getting Majid’s papers for reentry. Fortunately, KSM and subsequently Majid were both arrested before they could follow through with the plan.

In February of 2003, Aafia e-mailed her former dissertation advisor asking for help in finding a job in the US. Realistically this e-mail would have been a better first step in her job search than flying to go visit schools that were closed.

That same month she also remarried, this time to Ammar al-Baluchi who just so happened to be KSM’s nephew. Her family disputes that this happened, with Fowzia claiming that Aafia could not have remarried under Islamic law because the day she disappeared was the final day of her iddah, or waiting period. There is a three month waiting period after divorce where a woman is not allowed to remarry, and if she is pregnant then the iddah extends until she gives birth. In the case of the husband’s death the iddah is four months and ten days.

Even if we were to use that longer period of time, Aafia’s iddah still would have been up before the end of February. Since the date the divorce was finalized is a matter of public record thus making it easy to calculate when her iddah would have been over, Fowzia’s comments claiming that Aafia was not yet eligible to marry certainly does call into question the veracity of any statements made by her or the rest of Aafia’s family.

Intelligence sources in both Pakistan and the US confirm that the marriage took place, and KSM’s entire family confirmed it as well. But just like her previous marriage, this one wasn’t going to last. Amjad had found Aafia to be too devoted to jihad, but Ammar thought she was too liberal. He was arrested in April of 2003, at which point he divorced Aafia for her “liberal way of life”.

But that brings us up to March of 2003 and Aafia’s sudden disappearance. As addressed earlier, her family and the people of Pakistan contend that Aafia’s taxi was stopped and she was arrested and taken to Bagram. As for the children, each supposedly suffered a very different fate. Ahmed was allegedly taken to a juvenile prison in Kabul, Afghanistan where he remained until the day he and Aafia reappeared in Ghazni. He was then put into Fowzia’s custody.

As for Mariam, they claim that she was taken to Afghanistan and forcibly adopted into a white, Christian family by “a guy named Josh and a woman named Natalie”. That seems like far too cruel and bizarre a thing to do to a five year old girl, and if Mariam was living with a family for five years one would think she’d have more to identify them than “some guy and some lady”. However, her story didn’t end when Aafia was arrested the same way that Ahmed’s did. At the time, Mariam’s whereabouts were still unknown.

It wasn’t until April of 2010, almost two years after the arrest, that Mariam randomly appeared one day outside of Fowzia’s house in Karachi. She had a tag around her neck with Fowzia’s address, as if she had been dropped off like a piece of lost luggage. According to Pakistan’s Interior Minister Rehman Malik, the girl was found outside the house and could only speak English and Dari, suggesting that she had been living in Afghanistan. However, DNA testing to confirm she was Aafia’s daughter was allegedly inconclusive.

Baby Suleman’s story was by far the most tragic. According to Ahmed and Mariam, when they were being removed from the taxi they saw one of the arresting officers drop Suleman on his head. Some outlets describe it as an accident while others treat it as intentional murder, but either way the outcome was the same. In Pakistan Suleman has been presumed dead since Aafia’s arrest, though he is still considered missing by the US and no official explanation has been given for what happened to him.

In fact, no official explanation has really been given by the United States for what happened to Aafia or her three children for that entire five year period. It is believed that she went underground, possibly continuing to work with the al-Qaeda cell that KSM had created in Karachi, but no specifics are really known.

And this is certainly possible. Several people in her orbit had been arrested and sent to Guantanamo, so the idea that she would deliberately make herself disappear is totally reasonable. It also seems strange that in May of 2004, over a year after her disappearance, that Attorney General John Ashcroft would have named Aafia as one of the seven most wanted al-Qaeda fugitives in the world and as a “clear and present danger to the US” if she was already in custody. If she was in secret custody then one would understand leaving her wanted posters up, but specifically naming her as one of the seven most wanted at a press conference would be a little strange if they had already spent a year torturing her.

As far as can be determined, there is only one specific event during that five year disappearance where the US claims to know where Aafia was. She had left her parents’ house in March of 2003 to go visit her uncle in Islamabad, and she finally showed back up there five years later.

In a signed affidavit, Aafia’s uncle stated that she claimed to have been held captive by Pakistani agencies, and she wanted his help traveling to Afghanistan where she thought she would be safe. Her uncle had worked in Afghanistan two decades prior and apparently had some sort of connection with the Taliban back then, which is why she thought she would be safer there, but her uncle said he wasn’t in touch with any of those people anymore. He also told US authorities that Aafia’s mother came the next day to see her daughter, and that two days later everyone had left.

Really, it’s hard to know exactly what was happening during those five years and which stories are true and which are lies. But once those five years were up and Aafia was extradited to the United States, it was time for her trial which was both mysterious and kind of a shit show.

Trial and Conviction

The very existence of this trial is often seen as bizarre, and in some ways it is. However, there’s one question that is frequently brought up that has an easy answer. Aafia was charged with attempted murder and lesser gun related crimes, but none of the charges were in any way related to terrorism. If what she was accused of was a violent crime but not an act of terrorism, why then would she be tried in the United States instead of being tried in Afghanistan where the crime took place?

This is a reasonable question, as crimes are typically tried in the jurisdiction in which they occurred. However, Aafia’s crime fell under 18 U.S.C. § 1114, which relates specifically to attempts to kill officers or employees of the United States while performing their official duties. This statute specifies there is extraterritorial jurisdiction over these specific crimes, meaning that the US has jurisdiction to try these crimes no matter where in the world they take place. Note that any claims of extraterritorial jurisdiction require consent of the other government involved, unless you plan to go bring the accused back to your territory by force.

But the better question was why Aafia was being charged through the US court system at all. She was alleged to have been an al-Qaeda operative and had been labeled one of the seven most dangerous fugitives in the world. Why wasn’t she sent to Guantanamo as an enemy combatant like the other suspected terrorists? And why was she only being charged with attempted murder while she was in custody rather than for terrorist activities?

The most common claim related to this was that it was easier this way. Attempted murder is a straight forward charge, and the only evidence they would need would be the events of the date in question. To bring charges of terrorism in a jury trial would open a whole can of worms related to classified government information and military secrets. For the sake of ease and expediency, just charging her with the attempted murders would be the best course of action.

And while that’s certainly true, it makes the false assumption that the authorities would care about expediency. There are currently 15 prisoners in Guantanamo, and of them only 2 have been convicted of anything. Six of them haven’t even been charged with a crime yet, so it’s fair to say that the US wasn’t overly concerned with giving terrorists a speedy trial.

However, by 2008, public opinion was already turning against the use of Guantanamo. People weren’t thrilled about all the alleged torture and human rights violations that were said to be taking place there, so sending new prisoners would have been political suicide. Obama had even made closing Guantanamo part of his campaign platform in 2008, not that he actually did it. But it shows that people weren’t overly enthusiastic about the prospect of sending more people there.

There was also the fact that Aafia was a woman. Guantanamo had only ever held men, and sending a Muslim woman there would have played directly into jihadist propaganda. This would have further strained the already deteriorating relations between the US and Pakistan, as the government of Pakistan began demanding Aafia’s release as soon as she was extradited to the US.

But perhaps the most important detail was that Aafia was a mother. And not just any mother, she was the mother of two US citizens, Ahmed and Mariam. Guantanamo was specifically designated for enemy combatants, and no US citizen had ever been held there. Aafia wasn’t a citizen herself, but the fact that her children were could create a potential boondoggle that was best to avoid.

As for the trial itself, it was a disaster before it even began. Before anything could begin, Aafia needed a medical and psychological exam to make sure her gunshots had been properly treated and to determine if she was fit to stand trial. This caused a large delay in the trial, as Aafia underwent multiple psych evals. The first said she had depressive psychosis and a second said that she wasn’t fit to stand trial, though the latter then reversed her decision and said Aafia was faking it.

Four more psychiatrists were brought in to evaluate her, and three of them agreed that Aafia was attempting to fake signs of mental illness. One also noted that any claims of Aafia having been imprisoned and tortured were almost certainly lies.

KSM, who was famously waterboarded 183 times, gave detailed and elaborate descriptions of all of the torture he suffered. Also, as military personnel were quick to clarify, that 183 number means that KSM was subject to 183 pours of water over the course of his waterboarding sessions, and that he was only waterboarded on five distinct occasions.

But the point is that he and other people who had been held and tortured at CIA black sites had pretty vivid descriptions of what happened to them. Despite claiming to have endured the same sorts of treatment, Aafia never gave “a clear account of torture or imprisonment” to any of her psychiatrists, family members, or Pakistani officials.

With Aafia declared competent and the trial set to commence, the Pakistani embassy hired a team of three lawyers to defend Aafia. But she refused to cooperate with them, because they were Jewish. She even tried to have them dismissed on those grounds, while also claiming that the entire trial was a Jewish conspiracy and that all potential jurors should be DNA tested to ensure that no Jews were allowed to serve on the jury. She stated, “They should be excluded, if you want to be fair.”

That’s not a great start, but at least her lawyers had something to work with, even if they didn’t have someone who wanted to work with them. As mentioned earlier, there wasn’t really any physical evidence of what happened. There was no gunshot residue, no fingerprints on the gun, and no evidence that the gun was even fired. Furthermore, this dangerous terrorist, who had taken firearms courses while in college in Boston, allegedly got her hands on a gun and opened fire on US officials, yet the only person who got shot was her.

Given the lack of physical evidence, the prosecution’s evidence came in the form of eyewitness testimony from nine different witnesses. However, some of the accounts contradicted one another. When something potentially traumatic like a gunfight happens really quickly, it can be easy to lose track of the finer details in the heat of the moment while your adrenaline is pumping. But the witnesses didn’t even agree on really basic details, like how many people were in the room.

Of course, it didn’t help that Aafia kept having to be removed from the courtroom for interrupting and yelling at witnesses. Thanks to her frequent interruptions, she may have spent as much time watching her trial on a CCTV monitor inside a courthouse holding cell as she did in the courtroom.

As bad as that was though, it got even worse when, against the advice of her lawyers with whom she refused to cooperate, she insisted on taking the stand herself. Not only did she do little to make a case for herself, but according to a journalist who was present at the trial, Aafia kept “avoiding the question of where she had been for the last five years”. If she had actually spent five years being tortured in a secret prison, convincing the jury of that seems like something that would have been in her best interest, not something she would avoid getting on the record.

Remember the bag Aafia was found with when she was arrested that contained potential bomb making materials as well as plans for bombs, chemical weapons, and possible locations to attack? When asked about that on the stand by the prosecutors, Aafia claimed that the bag wasn’t hers and had been given to her. When reminded that the bag contained literally hundreds of pages of notes in her handwriting, Aafia claimed in an unconvincing tone that she had been forced to copy them down to save her children from torture. So at least one of those two contradictory statements had to have been a lie, and lying under oath while on trial for attempted murder is not going to endear you to a jury.

On February 3, 2010, after three days of deliberation, the jury found Aafia guilty of two counts of attempted murder, three counts of assault on U.S. officers and employees, armed assault, and using and carrying a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence (another extremely specific crime). Intent on both continuing to disrupt the proceedings and blaming everything on the Jews, Aafia replied to the verdict by yelling “This is a verdict coming from Israel, not America. That’s where the anger belongs.”

She repeated that statement seven months later when her sentencing hearing finally took place. For her crimes Aafia was sentenced to 86 years in prison, which honestly feels like an insane sentence. Many people believe the incredibly long sentence was a way to punish her for her alleged al-Qaeda ties without actually putting her on trial for them, and on first glance that certainly seems plausible. The idea that you could get 86 years in prison for attempted murder is as ludicrous as Robert Underdunk Terwilliger winning a Nobel Prize for attempted chemistry.

But something you need to remember is that the US justice system is insane and has incomprehensibly long sentences. Aafia was facing up to 8 years each for the three assault charges, and up to 20 years each for the armed assault charge and the two counts of attempted murder. If she was given the maximum sentence for each count and they were ordered to be served consecutively, that’s already 76 years. The US has federal sentencing guidelines though, so even as severe as these charges were, as a woman with no prior convictions it’s unlikely that she would have been given the maximum sentence.

However, that still left the overly specific firearm charge which had a minimum mandatory sentence of 30 years and a maximum sentence of life in prison. The prosecution was seeking a life sentence, but the jury had advised against this on the basis that Aafia’s acts were opportunistic rather than premeditated. Realistically there probably isn’t much difference between 86 years and a life sentence though. But at the very least we can get an idea where that number came from, even if many find US sentencing guidelines to be equal parts arbitrary and draconian.

But aside from making sure to turn to the spectators in the courtroom to blame her sentence on the Jews, Aafia was much more calm than she had been during her trial. She told the court “I am a Muslim, but I do love America, too. I do not want any bloodshed. I really want to make peace and end the wars.” She also forgave both the man who shot her and the judge who convicted her, as well as indicating a lack of desire to seek an appeal.

Aafia was originally incarcerated in Brooklyn before being moved to the Federal Medical Facility, Carswell in Texas, a prison for female inmates with special medical and mental health needs. In September of 2024, her lawyer Clive Smith, who has a long history appealing death penalty cases and aiding detainees at Guantanamo, filed a lawsuit alleging that Aafia had been beaten, sexually assaulted, and denied medical treatment while at FMC, Carswell.

Analysis and Conclusion

So we have two stories regarding Aafia, particularly surrounding her five year disappearance. Pakistan hasn’t denied Aafia’s involvement in activism with groups tied to al-Qaeda, particularly because there’s a lot of proof of that stuff, but they don’t mention it either. Instead they portray her as an innocent neuroscientist and child educator who was kidnapped, tortured, and falsely imprisoned, because reasons.

Seriously, in numerous interviews and documentaries involving Fowzia, Clive, and Yvonne, they don’t really seem to put forth any explanation as to why the US would have targeted her, other than the claim that KSM said a prayer that happened to include her first name.

The United States, on the other hand, had substantial evidence that she was at least tangentially connected to al-Qaeda and known terrorists, which is why she was wanted for questioning. And that’s actually an interesting part of her inclusion in the “seven most wanted” press conference. There weren’t specific terrorist allegations laid against Aafia, they just wanted to talk to her about some stuff.

The biggest mystery is what happened during her five year disappearance, and unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be much evidence regarding her whereabouts or activities during that time period at all. The lack of evidence could be used to support either story: that she was a ghost prisoner in Bagram or that she had gone underground to flee from the FBI and aid al-Qaeda, as neither circumstance would have left a paper trail.

Personally, one is inclined to believe the United States’ official version of the story, at least up until she was arrested. It is likely that, through her activism work, she became more radicalized by other members of the groups and potentially was involved in trying to facilitate al-Qaeda’s plans. At the very least, it seems possible that she would have become privy to certain plans and didn’t attempt to stop them or warn authorities. That said, there isn’t any evidence of her direct involvement in terrorist activities beyond facilitating the plans of others.

Take the P.O. Box in Maryland, for example. Aafia was intelligent and highly educated, but her biggest asset was that she had lived in the US for a decade. Not only could she travel freely, but she knew how things worked in the states. She could do seemingly mundane things like open a P.O. Box or rent an apartment with ease because of her years living here.

Stuff like that may seem straight forward, but the process of renting an apartment in Pakistan is remarkably informal compared to what we’re used to in the US. There are usually no credit checks, background checks, or employment verification, and lease agreements are often informal and handwritten. Compared to that, renting an apartment in the US is a nightmare of bureaucracy and paperwork that can be difficult to navigate for anyone unfamiliar with the process. Such difficulty and confusion could result in suspicion, so having someone like Aafia who could navigate these tasks would have been really useful.

But once Aafia was arrested, it’s a little less clear what to believe, and this may be a circumstance where the truth is somewhere in between the different versions of events that have been claimed. It’s difficult to believe that a soldier would put their gun on the floor and that Aafia would have grabbed said gun and opened fire while yelling “Death to America”. But it’s also hard to believe that a soldier would shoot an unarmed woman who was already in custody (even if she wasn’t restrained) without some sort of provocation.

Maybe if the room was filled with a dozen inexperienced soldiers that might have happened, but this was a high value target who was being met by FBI agents and an Army captain. It seems unlikely anyone involved in the arrest would have been so inexperienced or trigger happy. There was probably some sort of provocation, but it’s doubtful she actually grabbed and fired the warrant officer’s gun.

Getting back to the five year disappearance, though, there are a couple pieces of evidence that really support the idea she was just in hiding rather than in a secret prison. The first of these came in 2010, and it was major news at the time. In fact, there was so much news when it happened that Aafia’s name wouldn’t have come up in any of the reporting at the time. This was the February 2010 dump of hundreds of thousands of secret diplomatic cables transmitted between the US State Department and 274 of its consulates, embassies, and diplomatic missions around the world.

This was the first major WikiLeaks dump, and it shook the world. Not only did these leaks harm national security by revealing a lot of international strategy, but it also showcased human rights violations by the US, particularly as it pertained to reckless disregard for civilian casualties. However, buried amongst all of these state secrets were some memos to and from the US Embassy in Islamabad.

The memos were basically the embassy asking, “Hey, do you guys have Aafia Siddiqui at a secret prison in Bagram?” with the reply of essentially, “No, she ain’t ever been here.” Some people are generally disinclined to believe anything the government says, but don’t forget that these were secret government communications that were never supposed to see the light of day, buried under a pile of revelations about things the government was doing that people really wish they weren’t. It seems unlikely (though admittedly not impossible) that they would have been lying here.

The other bit of evidence came from statements Yvonne Ridley made in a 2022 documentary about Aafia. Allegedly, at some point in the 2010s she was attempting to negotiate a prisoner exchange between the United States and the Taliban. Yvonne was attempting to work out a trade of Aafia for Bowe Bergdahl, an Army soldier who was being held captive by the Taliban.

According to Yvonne, not only was the United States more than willing to trade Aafia for the American soldier, but they were even willing to throw in a presidential pardon too. She claimed that the US said Aafia wasn’t important and was of no value to them, so the pardon wouldn’t be a big deal at all.

However, Yvonne claimed that the deal fell apart when Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence found out what was being planned. Allegedly the ISI told the Taliban that if they went through with the exchange, the ISI would pull all of its support from the Taliban. She also claimed that the ISI told her if Aafia was returned to Pakistan, she would be dead within 48 hours.

The implication of all of this is that even if Aafia wasn’t worth anything to the US as a prisoner, she was invaluable to the ISI as one. Whenever they wanted to rile up the Pakistani people with anti-American sentiment, all they had to do was bring up their beloved Aafia who had been tortured, kidnapped, and was serving an unjust sentence in a US prison. But if she was actually returned home, she would be useless.

If you recall, Yvonne was and still is very much of the belief that Aafia had been held in Bagram for five years. However, this story of hers (which admittedly there is no evidence of beyond her word) seems to undermine that claim. If she was a valuable asset, the kind that would have been held at a secret prison full of terrorists for five years, then of course the ISI would have wanted her back.

But the story makes it sound as if the US believed after interrogating Aafia that she was just a woman who associated with the wrong people, yet she ultimately knew nothing of value. If that was true, then of course the ISI would want her to remain in US custody, and they would want to perpetuate the myth that she had been kept prisoner in Bagram for five years. Or maybe that’s overthinking a story that never happened, since the only evidence is the account of a journalist who is extraordinarily biased on this matter.

So was Aafia an unrepentant terrorist, a victim of American injustice, or an at least somewhat innocent person who fell in with the wrong crowd and was deemed guilty by association? The most likely answer seems to be the third option, though it’s hard to be sure. There is only one thing that’s certain: this case remains one of the most disputed and emotionally charged in the history of the War on Terror, with no resolution in sight for the woman known to some as Lady Al-Qaeda and to others as the Daughter of Pakistan.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Aafia Siddiqui?

Aafia Siddiqui is a Pakistani neuroscientist and MIT graduate who was labeled as one of the seven most wanted al-Qaeda fugitives by the United States. She was known as ‘Lady Al-Qaeda’ in the U.S. but as the ‘Daughter of Pakistan’ and ‘victim of all victims’ in Pakistan.

What was Aafia Siddiqui’s involvement with al-Kifah Refugee Center?

Aafia Siddiqui was involved with the al-Kifah Refugee Center, which was associated with violence and had ties to al-Qaeda. She gave speeches, did recruiting, and even fundraising for the group, despite its misogynistic environment.

What happened to Aafia Siddiqui’s children during her disappearance?

According to Pakistani sources, Aafia Siddiqui’s son Ahmed was taken to a juvenile prison in Kabul, Afghanistan. Her daughter Mariam was allegedly forcibly adopted into a white, Christian family in Afghanistan. Her youngest son, Suleman, was reportedly killed during their arrest.

What charges was Aafia Siddiqui convicted of?

Aafia Siddiqui was convicted of two counts of attempted murder, three counts of assault on U.S. officers and employees, armed assault, and using and carrying a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence.

What was the significance of the 9/11 attacks on American sentiment towards Muslims?

The 9/11 attacks led to a significant cultural shift in the U.S., fueled by nationalism and anti-Muslim sentiment. Hate crimes against Muslims increased dramatically, from 28 reported in 2000 to 481 in 2001.

What was the FBI’s initial interest in Aafia Siddiqui?

The FBI became interested in Aafia Siddiqui after Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, during his interrogation, was thought to have implicated her as a co-conspirator in al-Qaeda. This, combined with her previous involvement with al-Kifah Refugee Center, led to her being wanted for questioning.

What was the outcome of Aafia Siddiqui’s trial?

Aafia Siddiqui was found guilty on all counts and sentenced to 86 years in prison. She was incarcerated in the Federal Medical Facility, Carswell in Texas, a prison for female inmates with special medical and mental health needs.

What was the controversy surrounding Aafia Siddiqui’s arrest in Ghazni, Afghanistan?

The controversy surrounds the events leading to her shooting by U.S. officials. Aafia claimed she was unarmed and shot without provocation, while U.S. officials claimed she grabbed a gun and opened fire. The lack of physical evidence and conflicting testimonies added to the controversy.

What was the significance of the WikiLeaks dump in 2010 regarding Aafia Siddiqui?

The WikiLeaks dump included secret diplomatic cables that revealed communications between the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad and the Pakistani government. These cables denied that Aafia Siddiqui was ever held at a secret prison in Bagram, supporting the U.S. narrative that she was in hiding.

What was the proposed prisoner exchange involving Aafia Siddiqui and Bowe Bergdahl?

According to Yvonne Ridley, there was an attempt to negotiate a prisoner exchange between the United States and the Taliban, where Aafia Siddiqui would be traded for Bowe Bergdahl. The deal reportedly fell apart due to interference from Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).

Sources

• Original Decoding the Unknown video: Aafia Siddiqui: Terrorist or Victim?
• Hero image source by Jengod / openverse, by-sa.