Aafia Siddiqui, Date of Birth, Place of Birth
TweetAafia Siddiqui
Pakistani neuroscientist and terrorist
Date of Birth: 
Place of Birth: Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan
About Aafia Siddiqui
- Aafia SiddiquiUrdu: ????? ??????; born 2 March 1972) is a Pakistani neuroscientist with degrees from MIT and Brandeis University, who was convicted of multiple felonies.
- In 2010, she was convicted of seven counts of attempted murder and assault of US personnel, and is serving her 86-year sentence at the Federal Medical Center, Carswell in Fort Worth, Texas.Siddiqui was born in Pakistan to a Deobandi Muslim family.
- In 1990, she went to study in the United States and obtained a Ph.D.
- in neuroscience from Brandeis University in 2001.
- She returned to Pakistan for a time following the 9/11 attacks and again in 2003 during the war in Afghanistan.
- After his arrest and interrogation under torture Khalid Sheikh Muhammad allegedly named her a courier and financier for Al-Qaeda, and she was placed on the FBI Seeking Information - Terrorism list; she remains the only woman to have been featured on the list.
- Around this time she and her three children disappeared in Pakistan.Five years later, she reappeared in Ghazni, Afghanistan, so was arrested by Afghan police and held for questioning by the FBI.
- While in custody, Siddiqui told the FBI she had gone into hiding but later disavowed her testimony and stated she had been abducted and imprisoned.
- Supporters believe she was held captive at Bagram Air Force Base as a ghost prisoner—charges the US government denies. While in custody in Ghazni, police found documents and notes for making bombs along with containers of sodium cyanide in her possession.
- During the second day in custody, she shot at visiting U.S.
- FBI and Army personnel with an M4 carbine one of the interrogators had placed on the floor by his feet.
- She was shot in the torso when the warrant officer returned fire with a 9-millimeter pistol.
- She was hospitalized, and treated; then extradited and flown to the US where in September 2008 she was indicted on charges of assault and attempted murder of a US soldier in the police station in Ghazni—charges she denied.
- She was convicted on 3 February 2010 and later sentenced to 86 years in prison. Her case has been called a "flashpoint of Pakistani-American tensions", and "one of the most mysterious in a secret war dense with mysteries".
- In Pakistan her arrest and conviction was seen by the public as an "attack on Islam and Muslims", and occasioned large protests throughout the country; while in the US, she was considered by some to be especially dangerous as "one of the few alleged Al Qaeda associates with the ability to move about the United States undetected, and the scientific expertise to carry out a sophisticated attack".
- She has been termed "Lady al-Qaeda" by a number of media organizations due to her alleged affiliation with Islamists.
- Pakistani news media called the trial a "farce", while other Pakistanis labeled this reaction "knee-jerk Pakistani nationalism".
- The Pakistani Prime Minister at that time, Yousaf Raza Gillani, and opposition leader Nawaz Sharif, promised to push for her release.ISIS have offered to trade her for prisoners on two separate occasions: once for James Foley and once for Kayla Mueller.
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