* Paracha Detainee Assessment: Al-Balucchi (PK-10018) consulted with Aafia Siddiqui “about Pakistan’s biological weapons lab in Karachi”
Posted by DXer on April 26, 2011
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CASE CLOSED ... what really happened in the 2001 anthrax attacks? 
DXer said
US protesters demand release and repatiration of Aafia Siddiqui, Al Jazeera, October 21, 2021
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/10/21/us-pakistan-protests-release-neuroscientist-aafia-siddiqui
DXer said
Trial of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed set to resume at Guantanamo Bay
Reporters were given a tour of the facilities ahead of the proceedings.
ByJohn Parkinson andShannon K. Crawford
September 7, 2021, 5:00 AM
https://abcnews.go.com/International/trial-911-mastermind-khalid-sheikh-mohammed-set-resume/story?id=79858521
In addition to Mohammed, four other defendants charged in the 9/11 terrorist attacks will be in the courtroom: Walid bin Attash, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Ammar al-Baluchi (also known as Abd al Aziz Ali) and Mustafa al Hawsawi.
DXer said
New York judge voids Pakistani man’s conviction for aiding al Qaeda
Jonathan Stempel
NEW YORK (Reuters) – A Manhattan federal judge on Tuesday voided the November 2005 conviction of a Pakistani man for conspiring to help an al Qaeda operative enter the United States, saying new evidence cast doubt on the defendant’s guilt.
Uzair Paracha, 38, has been serving a 30-year prison term for allegedly helping Majid Khan obtain travel documents, after Khan plotted with al Qaeda leaders to bomb underground storage tanks at Maryland gas stations.
But U.S. District Judge Sidney Stein said newly discovered statements made by Khan, al Qaeda operative Ammar al Baluchi and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the accused mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, called into question whether Paracha knew he was helping al Qaeda.
Stein, who oversaw Paracha’s trial and imposed his sentence, called it a “manifest injustice” to let the conviction stand and granted Paracha’s request, made in November 2008, for a new trial.
The new evidence “would yield a fundamentally different trial and likely create a reasonable doubt favoring Paracha’s theory of the case over the government’s,” Stein wrote.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-crime-alqaeda/new-york-judge-voids-pakistani-mans-conviction-for-aiding-al-qaeda-idUSKBN1JT2J9
Comment:
The reason the US Army and Department of Justice has to play hide-the-ball with all of the emails quoted and relied upon in its Amerithrax Investigative Summary is that the emails that were culled were misleadingly cast as evidence of Ivins guilt. (See former lead Amerithrax investigator Lambert’s interviews explaining that the FBI is withholding a “staggering amount” of information exculpatory of Bruce Ivins). Instead some of the emails culled from production explain why he was scheduled to be in the lab in late September 2001 and early October 2001 on those nights and weekends. The DOJ and Army refuses to even admit that they have the emails that the DOJ quoted and relied upon in quoting Amerithrax.
Relatedly, the reason the DOJ has to withhold the 16 pages summarizing this evidence in the Interim 2006 memo by Lambert is that in the memo Lambert, having been the one to interview Ivins, summarizes the documentary evidence establishing the reason Ivins was in the lab those nights and weekends.
The DOJ and FBI culled the emails from the Army’s production by written instruction by email to USAMRMC Official John Peterson. There needs to be an Army and DOJ IG probe of the legality of this official “hide-the-ball.”
The reason that the DOJ need to obfuscate is that the only exemption that applies is “CYA” — in a case that a fragile man, Bruce Ivins, was driven to commit suicide. The government workers at DOJ did not want to be sued again, such as happened with the $5.8 million awarded Hatfill.
DXer said
Background on the Uzair Paracha case:
Dossier Shows Push for More Attacks After 9/11
By SCOTT SHANE and BENJAMIN WEISERAPRIL 25, 2011
Working with Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the 9/11 planner who in early 2002 gave him $500,000 to $600,000 “for safekeeping,” Mr. Paracha offered his long experience in the shipping business for a scheme to move plastic explosives into the United States inside containers of women’s and children’s clothing, the files assert.
“Detainee desired to help Al Qaeda ‘do something big against the U.S.,’ ” one of his co-conspirators, Ammar al-Baluchi, told Guantánamo interrogators, the files say. Mr. Paracha discussed obtaining biological or nuclear weapons as well, though he was concerned that detectors at ports “would make it difficult to smuggle radioactive materials into the country,” the file says.
***
Edward D. Wilford, a lawyer who represented the son at his 2005 trial, said his client had played no “witting” role in his father’s arrest.
“He was not a part of it in any way,” he said. “He didn’t make any calls. He didn’t make any contact. In fact, he was being held incommunicado. He didn’t have any way of knowing what was going on.” The son had been jailed in Manhattan on a material-witness warrant after his questioning by the F.B.I. in March 2003. He was charged criminally in August 2003, after his father’s arrest.
The relationship between father and son is only hinted at in the assessment report. It says that analysts concluded that Saifullah Paracha was “hiding aspects of his son’s extremist activities.” The son, though, talked about his father and his father’s relationship with Mr. bin Laden while testifying in his own defense.
DXer said
Former US agent tells how he protected Tiger Woods against terror attack in NZ in 2001
• 11 hours ago
• Newshub staff
http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2018/03/former-us-agent-tells-how-he-protected-tiger-woods-against-terror-attack-in-nz-in-2001.html
The author claimed to be a “enemy of America, the Great Satan as well as the Israeli regime and claimed allegiance to Islamic Jihad,” Mr Starnes told Stuff.
A scientist who represented the New Zealand police said the substance in the sugar packet had tested positive for potassium cyanide.
…
The offender was never identified or captured.
Comment:
Of course, a lot has been written about the doe-eyed MIT grad Aafia Siddiqui having cyanide — which she said was for doctoring documents — but likely had excellent spelling and isn’t known to be associated with New Zealand.
What does Hambali say about it the 2001 cyanide mailings? Wasn’t there a proposed plot that involved perfume sprayers using cyanide at a nightclub about this time? He was Sufaat’s supervisor. And was looking to reconstitute a lab in Southeast Asia in December 2001. Hambali was captured until over a year after Sufaat but he was in Thailand (Ayutullah) and thereabouts — not New Zealand. From where were the letters mailed?
As I vaguely recall, Bin Laden nixed the cyanide-sprayer bottle plot as ineffectual. What were the details of that plot again?
Lady al Qaeda: The World’s Most Wanted Woman – Foreign Policy
foreignpolicy.com/2014/08/26/lady-al-qaeda-the-worlds-most-wanted-woman/
Aug 26, 2014 – To free the prisoner, Aafia Siddiqui, who’s linked to al Qaeda and was convicted in 2010 of attempting to kill Americans in Afghanistan, would violate the … received a doctorate from Brandeis — Siddiqui was arrested in 2008 in Afghanistan carrying sodium cyanide, as well as documents describing how to …
Aafia Siddiqui’s lawyer demands proof she’s alive in Texas prison …
https://tribune.com.pk › Pakistan
Apr 24, 2015 – Aafia Siddiqui’s lawyer has demanded evidence from prison officials that she is still alive at the federal prison in Texas where she is being held, … According to US court papers, she was carrying two kilos of sodium cyanide hidden in moisturiser bottles, along with plans for chemical weapons and New …
The Afghans handed her to US forces who began questioning her. During her interrogation she grabbed a rifle and opened fire, according to witnesses, at US agents while screaming “Death to America” and “I want to kill Americans”.
DXer said
NYC Terror Groupies Wanted to Be ‘Bad Bitches’ With Bombs
They worshipped domestic terrorists, and tried to follow in their footsteps. But when these two New York City women got serious about their homemade bombs, the FBI swooped in.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/04/02/nyc-terror-groupies-wanted-to-be-bad-bitches-with-bombs.html
“There were no indications that Siddiqui, who is 31, is related to Aafia Siddiqui, also known as Lady al Qaeda, who’s currently serving time in a U.S. prison for attempting to kill Americans in Afghanistan. But Asia idolized her and appears to have attended Aafia’s trial and wrote about it under a pseudonym.
“A stranger saw my name and smiled, saying how similar it was to Aafia Siddiqui,” she wrote. “Over the years, it has become my pride to even possess a name similar to such a prestigious member of society.” Asis also wrote “A Poem for Aafia” for the same site.
The women studied earlier attackers and learned from their successes and mistakes, officials charge. For instance, Velentzas allegedly stated that she didn’t understand why people like Pugh were going abroad to wage war when there were more opportunities for “pleasing Allah” in the United States.”
DXer said
In this blog essay by Judy Bello, the author notes (and credits) Aafia’s sister and mom’s position that Aafia never was married to KSM’s nephew, Al-Balucchi.
The 12th Anniversary Of Aafia Siddiqui’s abduction: What happened to Aafia Siddiqui and where Is she now? Guest post by Judy Bello
Posted on April 2, 2015 |
http://blog.timesunion.com/wagingpeace/the-12th-anniversary-of-aafia-siddiquis-abduction-what-happened-to-aafia-siddiqui-and-where-is-she-now-guest-post-by-judy-bello/6740/
“Judy Bello is a [self-described] Peace and Justice activist who has recently traveled to Syria, Iran, Iraq and Pakistan where she spent time with the family of Aafia Siddiqui. “
Al-Balucchi helped the hijackers get in the country in an elaborate plot that led to the murder of 3,000 innocent civilians.
Wikipedia says this as to whether Aafia married Al-Balucchi:
Aafia Siddiqui *** claimed to be married to Baluchi.[9]Siddiqui’s marriage to Baluchi has been denied by her family, but confirmed by Pakistani intelligence, FBI, and—according to court records—by Siddiqui herself.[10] A defense psychologist also confirmed the marriage,[11] and BBC confirmed it from security sources and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s family.[12]
The mystery of Dr Aafia Siddiqui, The Guardian, 2009-11-24
Family Affair, Just Maybe, at Courthouse
Mystery of Siddiqui disappearance, BBC, 2008-08-06
What is the best linkable source to documentary evidence on this issue? For example, what does Al-Balucchi himself say?
Did Aafia live at Al-Balucchi’s family home with his sisters for a period?
Al-Balucchi was working on numerous plots to kill civilians “including the travel of 911 hijackers to the United States(US). He is affiliated with numerous other senior leaders of al-Qaida including Usama Bin Laden (UBL), Jemaah Islamiya (JI) leader Riduan bin Isomuddin aka (Hambali), Sayf al-Adl, Walid bin Attash aka (Khallad), Shaykh Said al-Masri, Hamza Zubayr and others. Detainee helped facilitate the travel and finances for at least 13 of the 9/11 hijackers as they left the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for the US. He was also involved in numerous plots targeting the US and other western assets, and acted as a liaison for messages and money for KSM and Indonesian al- Qaida leaders.2
***
While in Pakistan, detainee expressed interest in obtaining militant training from the camps in Afghanistan but could not fit the training around his studies. He felt he would not be very successful with the training so instead, he offered his services to his uncle, KSM, who used him to facilitate the activities of the 9/11 hijackers…
Detainee worked closely with KSM planning operations against US and Allied targets to include: Heathrow InternationalAirport, London, United Kingdom (UK); the US Consulate and several hotels in Karachi; the shoe-bombing attempt against American Airlines Flight 63; gas stations in the US; and unidentified targets in South East Asia (SEA).
Judy Bello writes:
“Aafia Siddiqui hasn’t spoken to her family in more than a year. She has a brother, also in Texas, but he has not been able to see her. No one has had contact with her for over a year now.”
I think what the author means to say is that her family has not been in contact with her and that the author’s own letters to Aafia have been returned.
Hopefully, someone some day will be able to obtain an interview and get a full description of the period 2003-2008. That would permit Aafia to speak for the public record as to whether she married Al-Balucchi and whether she aided and abetted one or more of his plots to murder civilians.
On the subject of her research on biological weapons, Aafia said she researched biological weapons (though inexpertly) for 6 months while at the Karachi Institute of Technology. The government never alleged that she had researched such weapons for five years as the author loosely implies. In contrast, in at least one detainee assessment report, Al-Balucchi says he asked her to assess the AQ anthrax program — and whether Yazid Sufaat’s assistant was up to the job (after Sufaat’s capture) — but that he did not pursue it with her beyond first broaching the subject.
Background:
Paracha Detainee Assessment: Al-Balucchi (PK-10018) consulted with Aafia Siddiqui “about Pakistan’s biological weapons lab in Karachi”
Posted by Lew Weinstein on April 26, 2011
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/tag/al-balucchi-pk-10018/
Thiesen’s COURTING DISASTER (2010): It Was Al-Balucchi (Who Consulted With Aafia About Anthrax Lab) Who Sent Maryland’s Majid Khan To Thailand In 2002 With the $50,000
Posted by Lew Weinstein on February 15, 2012
DXer said
Aafia was divorced from her first husband in October 2002. She had married him in a marriage arranged by her parents that was conducted by telephone. She reportedy married Al-Balucchi in February 2003, the month before Sindh counterterrorism picked her up and handed her over to ISI.
Dr. Aafia Siddiqui (Uncle’s Letters)
AUGUST 16, 2008
https://ayesha5.wordpress.com/2008/08/16/dr-aafia-siddiqui-uncles-letters/
You will recall that Rauf Ahmad was held at an ISI safe house also
The FBI did not take custody of the Pakistan anthrax scientist Rauf Ahmad who conducted a seminar on using a balloon to disperse the anthrax he had made
Posted by Lew Weinstein on January 17, 2015
GAO Should Obtain A Copy Of Rauf Ahmad’s Signed Written Statement Voluntarily Provided FBI Agent Borelli
Posted by Lew Weinstein on September 14, 2013
DXer said
On the issue whether Aafia was married to Balucchi as she claimed to the FBI at the hospital, Deborah Scroggins tells me today that she also heard that Ammar al-Baluchi has confirmed it. I have no idea whether that is accurate but maybe the issue will be mentioned in his upcoming trial.
Deborah says that Fowzia and friend Ismet wouldn’t necessarily know, as Aafia is supposed to have married him after she left Ismet’s house in 2003.
I was hoping to find some written corroboration of Aafia’s claim of her second marriage to the key 911 operative.
DXer said
Check out Sally Jacobs’ great article about Aafia Siddiqui in the Boston Globe titled “The woman ISIS wanted back”. Aafia worked with the Boston office of Al-Kifah, which was the renamed Care International associated with the Blind Sheikh’s Services Organization in Brooklyn. That is where Adnan El-Shukrijumah was at the time of Aafia’s activism on behalf of the group for the same cause.
The Blind Sheikh’s organization had been informally founded by Dahab, who had been taught to send lethal letters by Ali Mohammed. There were red hot leads pointing to Adnan El-Shukrijumah as the anthrax mailer since, at the very least, KSM’s interrogation in early Spring 2003.
The Boston Globe article is filled with great quotes by her husband, former MSA members and faculty. Below are brief snippets.
The Al Hayat letter bombs involved lethal letters sent to newspapers in NYC and DC and symbolic targets relating to the WTC 1993 plotters. Were the Al Hayat letter bombs the model for the Amerithrax letters? Were the same people responsible?
Posted on November 25, 2010
Thiesen’s COURTING DISASTER (2010): It Was Al-Balucchi (Who Consulted With Aafia About Anthrax Lab) Who Sent Maryland’s Majid Khan To Thailand In 2002 With the $50,000
Posted by Lew Weinstein on February 15, 2012
The woman ISIS wanted back
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/12/27/aafia/T1A0evotz4pbEf5U3vfLKJ/story.html
“That line led her into the arms of Al Qaeda. Sometime in the early 1980s, an organization called the Al-Kifah Refugee Center rented a mailbox in a squat brown building on Commonwealth Avenue in Allston. It was one of several addresses that belonged to the Brooklyn-based center, now believed to have been the heart of Osama Bin Laden’s terrorist operations in the United States. The center, whose Brooklyn office has been linked to the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center in New York, operated publicly as a pro-jihadi fund-raiser for Muslim refugees and routinely solicited student activists. In the early 1990s, Siddiqui and several other Muslim Student Association members volunteered to help out, and they distributed the group’s newsletter, “Al-Hussam,” which means “The Sword” in Arabic.
In March 1993, Siddiqui sent an e-mail to local Muslim students asking them to send pledges to Al-Kifah for orphans and widows they were sponsoring. She concluded, “Please keep up the spirit and motivate others as well!!!!!! The Muslims of our Ummah need ALL the help we can provide them.” She signed it, “humbly, your sister, aafia.”
***
Siddiqui also managed to talk some of the Muslim students into taking a shooting course with her, but once they got to the range, they found she had a lot to learn.
“We were all laughing like, ‘Uh-oh, Aafia’s got a gun!’ ” Jilani said. “Part of it was because she was such a bad shot, but also because she was always mouthing off about the US and the FBI being so bad and all.”
***
Siddiqui wasn’t laughing with them. In the mid-1990s, she took a 10-hour NRA shooting course at the Braintree Rifle & Pistol Club on her own. The instructor, who recalls she was a “reasonable shot,” declined to be identified, saying that after he testified at her 2010 trial he was brutally harassed.
***
Siddiqui’s newly acquired marksmanship skills presumably added luster to her resume as a budding jihadi. As Al-Kifah became increasingly anti-American in its message and openly blamed the United States for the bloodshed in Bosnia, Kohlmann said, Siddiqui appears to have embraced its violent positions. And the brothers of Al-Kifah, ever hungry for financial support, embraced her right back.
“Aafia was from a prominent family with connections and a sympathy for jihad,” Kohlmann said. “She was just what they needed.”
***
“I discovered that the well-being of our nascent family unit was not her prime goal in life,” Khan, an anesthesiologist in Saudi Arabia, said in a telephone interview. “Instead, it was to gain prominence in Muslim circles.”
Siddiqui, as Khan recalls it, was actively preparing to go overseas. On weekends, she regularly participated in training trips in New Hampshire with the brothers from Al-Kifah, which had changed its name to Care International after the New York bombing. She was fascinated by Islamic videos, sometimes tearing up as she watched a favorite one showing her hero Osama bin Laden eating from a simple bowl in a cave. And she begged her husband to give up his medical studies in order to serve as her “mahram,” or male traveling companion.
***
Then aligned with Care International, Siddiqui was also working to raise money for the resistance in Chechnya and Kosovo. Although her supporters say that Siddiqui never had any part in terrorist activities, Khan said that his wife was becoming militantly anti-American, angry in her conviction that the country was stifling mujahideen around the world.
“By now, all her focus had shifted to jihad against America, instead of preaching to Americans so that they all become Muslims and America becomes a Muslim land,” Khan said.
***
No longer required to go on campus, Siddiqui now dressed like the jihadi she had become, in a conservative black abaya. When she began agitating anew to join the jihad abroad, simmering differences with her husband erupted in physical violence, according to both sides. Siddiqui’s sister says Khan was abusive toward her. Khan, who had gotten a job at Tufts Medical Center, says it was the other way around.
“Things reached their worst stage after she finished her PhD and she had nothing to look forward to except her ambition to wage jihad,” said Khan. “Divorce had become inevitable.”
And then came Sept. 11, 2001.”
***
Then it became official. At a press conference in May 2004, FBI Director Robert Mueller identified the seven most wanted Al Qaeda fugitives as he stood before large red and white posters of their menacing faces. The only female among them was Aafia Siddiqui, whom he identified as “an Al Qaeda operative and facilitator.” She was then the Most Wanted Woman in the World.”
***
That woman remained at large, her whereabouts still unexplained, for nearly five years. In the summer of 2008, she was arrested in Afghanistan while holding a bag that authorities allege contained deadly poison and directions on how to make a bomb. While she was being interrogated the following day, Siddiqui is said to have picked up a rifle and shot at US agents while shouting “Death to America.”
DXer said
In June 2003 I wrote about Aafia Siddiqui, Adnan El-Shukrijumah, Ayman Zawahiri and anthrax.
I wrote:
“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view… ’til you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.”
Atticus Finch, To Kill a Mockingbird
June 13, 2003 rev.
In early June 2003, a CIA report concluded that the reason for Atta’s and Zacarias Moussaoui’s inquiries into cropdusters was in fact for the contemplated use in dispersing biological agents such as anthrax. Many people have argued that a US-based Al Qaeda operative is behind the anthrax mailings and that its purpose was to serve as a threat and warning.(1) Handwritten notes and files on a laptop seized upon the capture of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (“KSM”), Al Qaeda’s #3, included a feasible anthrax production plan … addressed the recruitment of necessary expertise.(2) What your morning paper did not tell you, however, was that the CIA seized a similar disc from Ayman Zawahiri’s right-hand, Mabruk, 5 years ago.(3) While other detainees have said Zacarias Moussaoui was going to fly a 5th plane into the White House, Mohammed, known as KSM, reportedly has said that Moussaoui was not going to be part of 9/11 but was to be part of a “second wave.”(4) In a July 31, 2001 email, Moussaoui wrote a flight school in Minnesota inquiring about a 6 month crop duster course. KSM has explained that his inquiries about crop dusters may have been related to the anthrax work being done by US-trained biochemist and Al Qaeda operative, Malaysian Yazid Sufaat.(5)
Sufaat, according to KSM, did not have the virulent US Army Ames strain that was to be used. That would require someone who had access to the strain. But nothing would stand in the way of Dr. Ayman Zawahiri’s decade-long quest to weaponize and use anthrax against US targets that was described by one confidante to an Egyptian newspaper reporter. The islamist had been released from Egyptian prison and had known Zawahiri well for many years.(6)
I Summary and Introduction
First, *** Zawahiri is Al Qaeda’s #2. He is head of Al Qaeda’s biochemical program. (8) Khalid Mohammed, #3, however, was also knowledgeable about anthrax production.(9) US-trained Malaysian biochemist Yazid Sufaat met with 9/11 plotters and two hijackers in January 2000. (10) Sufaat was a member of Al Qaeda and a member of Jemaah Islamiah (“Islamic Group”) which has ties with the Moro Front. (11) Sufaat used his company called Green Laboratory Medicine to buy items useful to Al Qaeda, to include 4 tons of ammonium nitrate that was recently recovered.(12) (Green symbolizes “Islam” and Prophet Mohammed’s holy war).(13) Zacarias Moussaoui, who had a crop dusting manual when he was arrested, stayed at Sufaat’s condominium in 2000 when he was trying to arrange for flight lessons in Malaysia.(14) Yazid Sufaat provided Moussaoui with a letter indicating that he was a marketing representative for Infocus Technologies and allegedly provided him $35,000.(15) The crop dusters were to be part of a “second wave.” (16)
After 9/11, Yazid Sufaat traveled to Afghanistan and Pakistan to work for the Taliban Medical Brigade and to continue his work with anthrax.(17) As described in US News, a former reporter from the Kabul Times apparently actually met Sufaat, without realizing it, while traveling near Kabul in October 2001, perceiving him as Filipino.(18) The fellow was carrying papers from Zawahiri and bragging about his ability to manipulate anthrax. (19) Sufaat was arrested in December 2001 upon his return to Malaysia.(20) Newsweek reported that a “second wave” involving biological attacks had been thwarted upon the arrest of Al Qaeda members who had been intended to provide logistical support.(21) Muklis Yunos, the head of MILF’s special operations group who according to Phillipine intelligence reports was said to have received training on use of anthrax as a biological weapon in Afghanistan, was arrested on May 25, 2003.
The CIA has known of Zawahiri’s plans to use anthrax for a half decade. The confidante and right-hand man of Dr. Ayman Zawahiri admitted that Zawahiri succeeded in obtaining anthrax and intended to use it against US targets.(22) Another senior Al Qaeda member (a shura or policy-making council member no less) was working for the Egyptian intelligence services and he confirmed the report in a sworn lengthy confession. (23) Even Zawahiri’s attorney in 1999 said that Bin Laden and Zawahiri were likely to resort to the biological and chemical agents they possessed given the extradition pressure senior Al Qaeda leaders faced. (24) A recently released islamist who had been a close associate of Zawahiri said that Zawahiri spent a decade and had made 15 separate attempts to recruit the necessary expertise to weaponize anthrax in Russia and the Middle East.(25) The US Army recipe was not used, and obtaining the unprocessed Ames strain of anthrax used does not pose much of an obstacle or warrant the weight given it by some press accounts.(26) There was lax control over the distribution of the Ames strain that was used, especially in light of the fact that transfers were not even required to be recorded prior to 1997.(27)
Al Qaeda’s anthrax production plans on Khalid Mohammed’s computer did not evidence knowledge of advanced techniques in the most efficient biological weapons.(28) Under the optimal method, there is no electrostatic charge; in the case of the anthrax used in the mailings, there was an electrostatic charge(29) Although there was a dominance of single spores and a trillion spore concentration, there were clumps as large as 40 – 100 microns. (Spores must be no bigger than 5 microns to be inhalable.) As Kenneth Alibek, the former head of Russia’s anthrax production program, explained on March 31, 2003 in response to a written question, “This anthrax wasn’t sophisticated, didn’t have coatings, had electric charge and many other things.” (30) Many point to the trillion spore concentration as extraordinary. It is far simpler, however, to achieve a trillion spore concentration in the production of a few grams than in industrial processing typical of a state sponsored lab.(31) Until addressed by a November 2002 article by Scott Shane of the Baltimore Sun(which then was reinforced by his April 11, 2003 story on the results of reverse engineering at Dugway Proving Ground in Utah), the “trillion spore” issue was at the heart of a lot of mistaken theories of the matter concluding that state sponsorship was necessarily indicated. The reported finding at Dugway undermines the argument of both the “bomb Iraq” crowd and the liberals focused on Dr. Steve Hatfill who object to US biodefense research because they view it as being useful for offensive purposes.
Khalid Mohammed says that Zacarias Moussaoui’s inquiries about crop dusting may have related to Yazid Sufaat’s anthrax manufacturing plans. (32) Athough the details of the documents on Mohammed’s computer may (or may not) point to possible difficulties in aerial dispersal, they are fully consistent with the product used in the anthrax mailings. Al Qaeda had both the means and opportunity.
[Here I included pictures of “Zawahiri, OBL, Khalid Mohammed, Aafia Siddiqui, Yazid Sufaat, Moussaoui” ]
Various doctors, both foreign and American, are associated with Al Qaeda leaders or operatives, to include the doctors Abdul Qadoos Khan, a bacteriologist from Rawalpindi and Aafia Siddiqui, Ph.D., from Karachi. Microbiologist Abdul Qadoos Khan was charged along with his son, Ahmed, for harboring the fugitives.(33) As of March 28, 2003, he was in a hospital for a cardiac problem and had been granted “pre-arrest bail.” (34) Yet all you read about is the arrest of the son Ahmed Abdul Qadoos, who receives a stipend from the UN for being officially low-IQ due to lead poisoning.(35)
It was Khalid Mohammed who told authorities about MIT-trained biologist Aafia Siddiqui, who at one time was thought to be traveling with a Florida “Atta level” pilot. (36) All the Pakistani press is reporting that she was nabbed in Karachi after being spotted at the international airport on March 29.(37) It was not until three weeks later that NBC, relying on an unnamed senior official, first reported her captured. For the longest time, no US newspaper had yet reported that she was captured and instead stories continued to state that the FBI is seeking her for questioning.(38) If the sources relied upon by these journalists did not even know (or would not reveal) that Aafia had been caught, why do these reporters think they know what’s going on in the Amerithrax matter? Amerithrax is a confidential investigation. The Pakistan ISI and CIA rarely grant press interviews in connection with an ongoing manhunt. As agent Van Harp, head of the Amerithrax investigation has said, the information coming from Khalid Mohammed is classified.(39)
According to the Pakistan reports, she was spotted at the international airport and detained (after she was followed to a relative’s house). Some reports say she was coming from abroad, but the original report the others are all copying say she was coming from “upcountry.” (Karachi is in the south). The reports say she is suspected of having been a member of Al Qaeda’s “Chemical Wire Group.” (40) Perhaps something got lost in the translation, but the phrase “Chemical Wire Group” has appeared in all the English Pakistan and India papers. (41)
Officials have not publicly confirmed anything about the detention or interrogation. There still is a very hot pursuit of the”Atta-level” Florida pilot that Siddiqui is thought to have known and been assisting. He is said by one FBI agent to be “very, very, very” dangerous.(42) We truly no longer have time for faulty analysis or politically-based preconceptions.
Second, the media coverage has been seriously confused on the issue of motive and the reason Senators Daschle and Leahy would have been targeted– tending to simplistically view them as “liberals.” Zawahiri likely targeted Senators Daschle and Leahy to receive anthrax letters, in addition to various media outlets, because of the appropriations made pursuant to the “Leahy Law” to military and security forces.(43) That money has prevented the militant islamists from achieving their goals. Al Qaeda members and sympathizers feel that the FBI’s involvement in Muslim countries like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Indonesia, and the Philippines interferes with the sovereignty of those countries.(44) Indeed, the “Leahy Law” had one of its most well-known applications in Indonesia. Senator Leahy was Chairman of both the Judiciary Committee overseeing the FBI and Appropriations Subcommittee in charge of foreign aid to these countries. (45) In late September 2001, it was announced that the President was seeking a blanket waiver that would lift all restrictions on aid to military and security units in connection with pursuing the militant islamists.(46) This extradition and imprisonment of Al Qaeda leaders, along with US support for Israel and the Mubarak government in Egypt, remains foremost in the mind of Dr. Zawahiri. At the height of the development of his biological weapons program, his brother was extradited and executed pursuant to a death sentence in the “Albanian returnees” case. (47) It’s hard to keep up with the stories about billion dollar appropriations, debt forgiveness, and loan guarantees to countries like Egypt and Israel and now even Pakistan — and those appropriations pale in comparison to the $75 billion in a “Supplemental” appropriation relating to the invasion of Iraq. Al Qaeda had a motive in mind.
In his Fall 2001 book titled “Knights under the Banner of the Prophet,” Zawahiri argued that the secular press was telling “lies” about the militant islamists — to include the suggestion that the militant islamists were somehow the creation of the United States in connection with expelling the Russians from Afghanistan.(48) Zawahiri argued instead that they have been active since the assassination of Anwar Sadat in Egypt because of the treaty between the Camp David Accord and the resulting peace treaty between Egypt and Israel. The anthrax letters were sent on the date of the Camp David Accord and then the date Anwar Sadat was assassinated as if to underscore the point to anyone paying attention. Most of the “talking heads” on television, however, knew only that Daschle and Leahy were liberal democrats and did not know anything of Al Qaeda beyond what they read in the newspapers.
Third, this tactic of letters is not merely the modus operandi of these militant islamists inspired by Zawahiri, it is their signature. The islamists sent letter bombs a few years ago to newspaper offices in New York City and Washington, D.C. in connection with the earlier bombing of the World Trade Center and the imprisonment of the blind sheik, Sheik Abdel Rahman. (49) The former leader of the Egyptian Al-Gamaa al-Islamiya (“Islamic Group”), he was also a spiritual leader of Al Qaeda. The letter bombs were sent in connection with the treatment of the Egyptian islamists imprisoned for the earlier attack on the WTC and a related plot. (50) The purpose of the letter bombs — which resulted in minimal casualty — was to send a message. (There is an outstanding $2 million reward). (51) There was no claim of responsibility. There was no explanation. Once one had been received, the next ten, mailed on two separate dates, were easily collected.(52) Sound familiar? Two bombs were also sent to Leavenworth, where a key WTC 1993 defendant was imprisoned, addressed to “Parole Officer.” (53) Abdel Rahman’s son was captured in Quetta, Pakistan in mid-February 2003.(54) That arrest in turn led to the dramatic capture of Khalid Mohammed, Al Qaeda’s #3. Mohammed was hiding in the home of the Pakistani bacteriologist Dr. Abdul Qadoos Khan. (55) (Along with Zawahiri, Abdel Rahman and his two sons have long had considerable influence over Bin Laden.)(56)
A sender purporting to be islamist sent cyanide in both 2001 and 2002 in New Zealand and ingredients of nerve gas in Belgium in 2003. There’s even a chapter titled “Poisonous Letter” in the Al Qaeda manual. Just because Al Qaeda likes its truck bombs and the like to be effective does not mean they don’t see the value in a deadly missive. As Brian Jenkins once said, “terrorism is theater.”
[Here I inserted pictures of “Ramzi Yousef, Zawahiri, Bin Laden, Mohammed, Al Zayat, Abdel Rahman” ]
Zawahiri and OBL are Rahman’s friends; Mohammed is Yousef’s uncle
The mailer’s use of Greendale School is revealing. Documents establish that Zawahiri used “school” as a code word for Al Qaeda in his correspondence. Green symbolizes Islam and was the Prophet Mohammed’s color. (57) By Greendale School, the anthrax perp was being cute, just as Yazid Sufaat was being cute in naming his lab Green Laboratory Medicine. “Dale” means “river valley.” Greendale refers to green river valley — i.e., Cairo’s Egyptian Islamic Jihad or the Islamic Group. The sender is announcing that he is of Jihad-al Qaeda, which is actually the full name of the group after the 1998 merger of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad and al Qaeda.
Fourth, a number of additional miscellaneous leads in the investigation are consistent with Al Qaeda’s responsibility. The issues are marked by conflicting evidence. But all of the issues are consistent with Al Qaeda’s responsibility, to include:
a. FBI’s Profile The FBI’s profile includes an US-based supporter of the militant islamists. Attorney General Ashcroft has always said that an “either-or” approach is not useful.(58) The media has tended to overlook the fact that when the FBI uses the word “domestic” the word includes an US-based, highly-educated supporter of the militant islamists. The media’s perception notwithstanding, the FBI, for its part, was always vigorously testing a number of alternative hypotheses. The FBI has said that authorities do not know whether the perp is American or Foreign.(59) Asked if the possibility of an overseas perpetrator (or, for example, an US-based supporter of the militant islamists) is still open, an investigator said last year, “Absolutely. Until we get a good suspect identified, we’re looking at all theories.”(60)
b. Hijacker Ahmed’s Blackened Leg Lesion The hijacker Ahmed Alhaznawi appears to have contracted cutaneous anthrax in Afghanistan. It’s reasonable to credit his statement that he got the lesion after bumping into a suitcase he was carrying at a camp in Afghanistan. The lesion is further evidence of Al Qaeda’s anthrax production program in Afghanistan.
c. Inquiries About Cropdusters The reported inquiries about cropdusters demonstrate what is at stake. In early June 2003, a CIA report concluded that the reason for Atta’s and Zacarias Moussaoui’s inquiries into cropdusters was in fact for the contemplated use in dispersing biological agents such as anthrax. It has long been known Osama Bin Laden was interested in using cropdusters to disperse biological agents (since the testimony of millennium bomber Ressam).
d. Jennifer Lopez Letter There is a substantial question whether the letter to AMI, the publisher of the National Enquirer, was a goofy love letter to Jennifer Lopez enclosing a Star of David.
e. Fort Lee, New Jersey $100,000 Processor One potential lead concerned a Fort Lee New Jersey $100,000 processor possibly of a type that could have been used to weaponize the anthrax. (63) The processor was paid for in cash after a check-kiting scheme. The processor was delivered to a business front in Ft. Lee at 215 Main St. The address was 1 mile from pilot Nawaf al-Hazmi at 96 Linwood Plaza, one of the two hijackers who had attended the January 2000 meeting with anthrax technician Yazid Sufaat.
f. Suspected Pakistan Anthrax The “confirmed cases” of anthrax in Karachi, Pakistan, unless a “false positive,” have always pointed to the Karachi connection also evidenced by Khalid Mohammed’s and Yazid Sufaat’s time there.(64)
g. Presence of Silica in the Spore Mixture (but not as a Special Coating) The presence of silica in the spore mixture is notable in light of Al Qaeda’s recommendation of using a silicone sealant to wipe the inside of the envelope in sending a “Poisonous Letter.” Former Russian bioweaponeer Dr. Alibek — along with Harvard’s Dr. Meselson — have explained that there was no special silica coating and that the silica served no special purpose in “weaponization.” Dr. Alibek and Dr. Meselson have explained that while silica was, in fact, detected, anthrax spores have an unusual tendency to pick up silica from their environment. [Note: Vahid Majidi acknowledges it could have been added to the culture medium]. Here, the Al Qaeda manual specifically instructed to wipe the envelope with a silicone sealant — containing up to one-third treated fumed silica — so as to not kill the mailman.(65)
h. Atta’s Travels to Prague and the Alleged Iraq Connection. The present evidence relating to Atta’s travel to Prague does not warrant any conclusion that Al Qaeda obtained the Ames strain from Iraq. ***
Anthrax, Al Qaeda and Ayman Zawahiri: The Infiltration of US Biodefense
http://www.amerithrax.wordpress.com
DXer said
Aafia Siddiqui’s wehreabouts 2003-2008 was also the subject of a Guardian piece yesterday.
“The law will protect any member of Congress who releases the full torture report. Someone needs to step up,” Dec 29, 2014
Mike Gravel
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/dec/29/releases-the-full-torture-report-constitution-pentagon-papers
“One of my specific interests is the possibility that the report (or the documents) might shed more light on what happened to Dr Aafia Siddiqui.
Siddiqui and her lawyers allege that she was arrested in 2003 in Karachi, Pakistan, after which her family says she was held and tortured in the Bagram detention centernorth of Kabul, Afghanistan. (Cables released by Wikileaks in 2010 indicate that, in response to inquiries in 2008, Bagram officials denied that they had been holding her.) In 2008 she was arrested in Ghanzi, Afghanistan with maps of American cities and bomb-making literature and, when American military personnel went to interrogate her, she allegedly grabbed a gun and was shot in the ensuing struggle.
Siddiqui survived the shooting and was extradited to the US to stand trial for attempting to kill an American soldier and, though prosecutors claimed she had ties to al-Quaida, she was not charged with terrorism. She was convicted of the shooting and sentenced to 86 years in prison.
Neither the CIA nor the US or Pakistani governments have adequately accounted for Siddiqui’s disappearance between 2003 and 2008 – and, as we’ve learned from even the redacted torture report, parts of our government has repeatedly show themselves willing to lie to the public and the rest of the government about what we did in that part of the world during those years.”
In 1971, I entered the full text of the top-secret Pentagon Papers – a history of how the US became mired in the swamp of the Vietnam War – into the Congressional Record, even as the Federal Bureau of Investigation was hunting for Daniel Ellsburg (who gave the papers to the New York Times) and President Richard Nixon and his Justice Department were filing injunctions against newspapers to prevent their publication. Subsequent case law affirmed that members of Congress may reveal any government “secret” to the public without fear of prosecution because of the “Speech and Debate” clause of the constitution, from which members derive their duty to inform the people about the actions of their government.
It’s time for some Senator or Congress member to do the same for the full torture report and its associated documents. There’s still too much we don’t know about what the government did in our name – and who they did it to.
It should be easy to get the entire report on the record: any information held by the Congress is technically already in the record, so no one need read it in its entirety on the floor of either congressional chamber or enter it in the committee or subcommittee record, the way I had to with the Pentagon Papers. A member of Congress may hand out the information to the press or the public, so long as the distribution occurs on property associated with the Senate or House of Representatives: the constitution does not qualify how “Speech and Debate ” is exercised, only that it occur “in either House”.”
Some background:
DXer said
According to the Senate Torture Report, Al-Balucchi discussed El-Shukrijumah in his interrogation.
Here is a lengthy essay on Aafia Siddiqui written in French.
http://sara-daniel.blogs.nouvelobs.com/archive/2014/12/09/la-dame-en-noir-de-l-etat-islamique-549508.html
Sara Daniel
December 9, 2014
La Dame en noir de l’Etat islamique
La scientifique pakistanaise Aafia Siddiqui, condamnée à 86 ans de prison pour tentative de meurtre, est devenue l’égérie des terroristes. Ils réclament sa libération et décapitent en son nom.
DXer said
The Senate Torture Report notes that al-Balucchi knew Shukrijumah and discussed him in interrogation.
DXer said
Aafia Siddiqui is in the news today challenging her conviction.
Lady Al Qaeda challenges her conviction, saying she was assigned lawyers not authorized to act on her behalf
Aafia Siddiqui, 42, filed court papers Monday arguing that her guilty verdict should be vacated because a federal judge forced her to accept three lawyers paid for by the Pakistani government. She was convicted for trying to kill U.S. soldiers and FBI agents.
BY DANIEL BEEKMAN NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Tuesday, May 13, 2014
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/lady-al-qaeda-guilty-verdict-dumped-article-1.1789868#ixzz31hcLHoeX
“Siddiqui was sentenced to 86 years in prison in 2010. Her filing says Pakistan paid the lawyers $500,000 each. It also says Pakistan was responsible for her being abducted and detained in 2003, claiming the lawyers had a conflict of interest in the case.”
Why was Aafia associated with her brother’s Ann Arbor address? (Her brother lived in Ann Arbor until he moved to Houston in 2001). While visiting her brother in Ann Arbor (which is how I suppose her name came to be associated with his address in Ann Arbor), did she know the scientist supplied virulent Ames and Vollum 1B in 1998?
I don’t recall the details of her representation and so offhand don’t have a view of the viability of this legal challenge she is making. I once studied the 9th circuit precedent on the precise issue in the similar case of Theodore Kacyznski. So I do respect that it implicates some core constitutional issues. Kaczynski seemed a sly dog in embedding legal error into the proceeding. The opportunistic gamesmanship surrounding the issue makes it very difficult for a federal district court to chart the right course.
I used to correspond a lawyer in Pakistan who disagreed with the approach Aafia’s sister Fowzia was taking. He sought to represent Aafia pro bono and was making some filings in Pakistan. He posted once on this blog.
Before that, I corresponded with the family’s ACLU family attorney Annette Lamoreaux who pitched Aafia as a “soccer mom.”
With doe eyes as intelligent as Aafia, if she could control her temper I would let her argue her own case.
In any event, if these prisoners were allowed to be interviewed in prison, I think we would learn a lot.
Anthrax, Al Qaeda and Ayman Zawahiri: The Infiltration of US Biodefense
http://www.amerithrax.wordpress.com
DXer said
http://www.thenews.com.pk/article-137824-Al-Qaeda-members-arrested,-explosives-seized-in-Karachi
KARACHI: CID police claimed to have arrested three suspects, having links with Al-Qaeda, from Karachi, Geo News reported.
Inspector CID Raja Omer Khattab said on Friday, the accused were involved in killing of police men and people of Bohri Jamaat community. He said four pistols, four hand grenade, explosive material and more than 30 detonators were recovered from the custody of the accused.
The inspector further said the arrested Al-Qaeda men were students of Karachi university, adding the media group of Qaeda had distributed its literature in the varsity sometimes back.
Raja Khattab said Al-Qaeda network is present in the KU that included professors.
http://www.amerithrax.wordpress.com
DXer said
Yazid Sufaat and Hambali spent 3 weeks during the critical period leading up to 9/11 and the anthrax mailings. Where was the Karachi anthrax lab located? Was it at the Karachi technical institute where Aafia worked for 6 months developing anthrax?
DXer said
http://www.thenews.com.pk/Todays-News-6-166953-The-rise-of-TTP%20s-Aafia-Siddiqui-Brigade
The rise of TTP’s Aafia Siddiqui Brigade
Amir Mir
Saturday, March 23, 2013
Islamabad
The Pakistani authorities investigating the March 18 fidayeen attack on the Judicial Complex in Peshawar which killed four people and injured 50-plus others have reported to the Ministry of Interior that it was the second act of terrorism which has been attributed to the Aafia Siddiqui Brigade.
The first act was the March 20, 2012 bombing of a police van on the Peshawar Ring Road which had killed two policemen.
The law enforcement agencies investigating the Judicial Complex assault [which killed two policemen] have informed the Ministry of Interior that the responsibility for the fidayeen attack was claimed by Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan, saying: “The attack was carried out by the outfit’s Aafia Siddiqui Brigade and it was meant to avenge the failure of Pakistani judiciary to protect an innocent Pakistani scientist, Dr Aafia Siddiqui, who, is being held behind the bars in the United States. We pompously claim the Peshawar suicide attack. Our war against the ‘infidel’ government will continue. We had offered peace talks to the government but it did not reciprocate accordingly”, Ehsan added.
It was for the first time in recent years that the TTP not only claimed a terrorist attack which directly targeted the Pakistani judiciary, but also attributed it to Aafia Siddiqui Brigade. Interestingly, many of those injured in the Judicial Complex attack were ladies, especially Additional District and Sessions Judge Kulsoom Azam who had a narrow escape after one of the bombers exploded himself inside her court room to avoid arrest. Both the suicide bombers were carrying six kilograms each of explosives in their jackets.
The law enforcement agencies have apprised the Ministry of Interior that the last terror attack attributed to the Aafia Siddiqi Brigade had taken place precisely a year ago – on March 20, 2012 – and that too in Peshawar when a police van was bombed near the Qamardin Gari Bridge, killing two policemen including an assistant sub-inspector. While claiming responsibility, a TTP spokesman [Mukaram Khurasani] had stated on March 21, 2012 that the van was ambushed by the Aafia Siddiqui Brigade of the TTP as part of its strategy of targeting the Pakistani security forces. He had further warned the Pakistan government to immediately release the arrested family members of Osama bin Laden, saying they were innocent children and women and they should not be handed over to the Americans. The terrorists had planted 10 to 12 kilograms of explosives to detonate the van.
Dr Aafia Siddiqui was arrested in Afghanistan by the US-led Allied Forces in 2003 for allegedly carrying two pounds of sodium cyanide and crumpled notes referring to mass casualty attacks targeting New York landmarks. The day after her arrest, she allegedly grabbed an M-4 rifle in her interrogation room and started shooting while yelling ‘death to America, the trial jury said. No US agents or soldiers were hit, but Aafia was shot and wounded in response. Her defence lawyers, who were paid by Pakistan government, argued that their client had shot at the US officials in panic and said the crime lacked any connection to terrorism. Aafia Siddiqui was subsequently sentenced by US District Judge Richard Berman in September 2010 on charges of attempted murder and armed assault. But Aafia persistently denied the charges.
The al-Qaeda as well as the Pakistani and the Afghan Taliban have often demanded her release in the past.
The al-Qaeda as well as the Pakistani and the Afghan Taliban have often demanded her release in the past. In December 2010, top al-Qaeda ideologue Abu Yahya al Libi had released a propaganda tape calling on Muslims to wage jihad to avenge Aafia Siddiqui. The tape was titled ‘Aafia Siddiqui, captivity and oppression, where are the heroes?’
…
In a video released on September 10, 2012, al-Qaeda ameer Dr Ayman al Zawahiri had claimed responsibility for the abduction of a senior USAID official from Lahore, saying: “We, by the grace of Allah, announce that we will not release the American captive Warren Weinstein, Allah willing, until the Crusaders release our captives including Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman and Aafia Siddiqui”. In April 2012, it was the turn of the Afghan Taliban to demand $1 million and the release of 20 Afghan prisoners along with Aafia Siddiqui in exchange for the release of an American soldier Bowe Bergdahl who was taken hostage in June 2009 from the Paktika Province.
FBI Director, is the world ready for the truth? What do you think?
DXer said
Is Aafia giving interviews?
DXer said
Here is an interview of Dr. Aafia’s first husband (the 911 plotter was her second husband).
Aafia Siddiqui…the other side of the story…
Posted by sarmad on Oct 7th, 2010 and filed under Blog, PHOTOS. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry from your site
The News – Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Claims most reports in the local media are false, suspects his two ‘missing’ children are in Karachi
By Aroosa Masroor
KARACHI : After six years of silence, Dr Muhammad Amjad Khan, ex-husband of Dr Aafia Siddiqui, has finally spoken up and says that most of the press reports that relate to his former wife as well as his children are false. In an exclusive talk with The News, he said that most claims are being propagated to garner public support and sympathy for Dr Aafia but are one-sided and in most instances untrue.
Dr Aafia Siddiqui, suspected of having links to terrorist organizations, has been charged in a criminal complaint filed in a court of New York on account of attempting to kill US personnel during interrogation and on a charge of assaulting US officers and employees in Kabul, Afghanistan, on July 17, 2008. Subsequently Dr Aafia was imprisoned in Bagram for 18 days before being taken to the US for a trial.
Due to pressure from Aafia Siddiqui’s family, the Pakistan government has been trying to secure her release from the US claiming her to be innocent. Although the US government has guaranteed Aafia the best legal assistance and a fair trial, her family is adamant that she be sent back on grounds that the US authorities have been consistently torturing her for years. ”
Aafia’s release cannot be secured by propagating stories based on falsehood and deception,” commented Dr Amjad Khan, in an interview with The News. Dr Amjad, who was married to Dr Aafia for seven years until their divorce in October 2002, said Aafia’s family and supporters should not believe that truth will not be revealed and mere lies will help in securing Aafia’s repatriation.
He added that he is disappointed with the government’s disregard for the law when officials handed over his eldest son, Ahmad, to his aunt Dr Fowzia Siddiqui on his return from Afghanistan last year instead of his legal guardian, his father. “The government made no effort to locate me despite the fact that I am Ahmad’s real and legal guardian. My address in Karachi has not changed for the past 30 years. Ever since I returned from the US after our divorce, I have been living with my family,” he said adding: “Both the Minister for Interior Rehman Malik and Dr Fowzia have been taking credit for obtaining Ahmad’s release even though there was not a stone I left unturned to locate my missing children and obtain their custody according to law.
“ Providing documentary proof of the legal agreement between him and Dr Aafia following their divorce, Dr Amjad said that he had been financially supporting his three children Ahmed, Marium and Suleiman until the family stopped accepting the cheques he had been mailing. “After the agreement they accepted my cheques till March 2003. After that my cheques were being returned from Aafia’s home and that got me worried. Soon after I learnt that in April 2003, Aafia and our children had been ‘picked up’ by agencies.” Meanwhile, he received disturbing reports from the family that Aafia chose to leave Karachi with her children as she feared an attack from him.
Curious to locate the whereabouts of his children, Dr Amjad sought the help of the police and government officials to find them. “I was aware of Aafia’s violent personality and extremist views and suspected her involvement in Jihadi activities. My fear later proved to be true when during Uzair Paracha’s trial in the US in 2004, the real purpose of Aafia’s trip to the US (between December 23, 2002 and January 3, 2003) was revealed.” Elaborating, Dr Amjad disclosed that he later learnt from media reports that Aafia’s family claimed she made this trip to the US for job interviews in December at a time when universities were closed for winter holidays. “I also found it very odd that on the one hand Aafia insisted on leaving the US after September 11, 2001, claiming the country was unsafe for us and our children because the US government was abducting Muslim children, and on the other hand took the risk of travelling to that country again without fearing that she may be captured and may never see our children again.
“ While Dr Aafia was in the US , the authorities had been closely watching her, added Amjad. They soon issued the first global “wanted for questioning” alert for the couple in March 2003. “At that time, the agencies did not know we were divorced and I was also unaware of Aafia’s involvement with two other terror suspects, Majid Khan and Ammar Al-Baluchi. They wanted me to persuade Aafia to appear for the interview with them and clear the charges leveled against her just as I had done. That is when she went underground and it later became apparent why she chose to ‘disappear’,” disclosed Dr Amjad.
Sharing details of his unsuccessful marriage with Dr Aafia, Dr Amjad told The News that since their marriage was arranged, he was unaware of Aafia’s violent behaviour. “She got hysterical fits when she became angry and would physically attack me, but I put up with it for the sake of our children.
“ Although Amjad and Aafia both were inclined towards religion, he found her opinion towards Jihad to be of an extreme nature that sometimes made him uncomfortable. He became particularly suspicious of his wife’s intentions when soon after the 9/11 attacks, she compelled Amjad to leave Boston (where Amjad was completing his residency) and move to Afghanistan where she claimed “he would be more useful”.
The couple, however, chose to come to Pakistan instead for a vacation and discuss the matter with Amjad’s family. It was here that his parents noticed Aafia’s violent behaviour towards their son on several occasions, particularly when she openly asked for khula (divorce) when Amjad declined to go to Afghanistan . Therefore Amjad decided to file for a divorce as Aafia was adamant she wanted to go. “I tried my best to save our marriage, but divorce was inevitable,” he recalls.
However, after mutual consent, the couple signed a legal agreement whereby the custody of the three minors was given to Aafia, while Amjad was required to pay for their education and maintenance. “Although the agreement says I am permitted to meet my children once a week, I was not allowed to do so,” claimed Amjad sharing a copy of the agreement during the interview.
Based on his past experience, Amjad says he had reason to worry about his children. “I feared Aafia might pursue her political ambitions to the detriment of our children’s welfare so I couldn’t help following her case after her family claimed she had been abducted.” Amjad added that he was tempted to use other means to try and rescue his children in these past five years especially since he had evidence that were missing or kidnapped, he claimed. “But I chose to be patient and pursued the case according to the law.” He also filed a case in court against Aafia to obtain the custody of his children.
“When the Court was unsuccessful, I requested the HRCP to include my children’s names in their missing persons petition in the Supreme Court and also appealed to the Chief Justice for Suo Moto action as this was the only case where three minors were involved.” However, after Ahmad was released and handed over to Dr Fowzia last year, Dr Amjad requested her to allow him to visit his son, but she refused. “At first she said Ahmed was mentally unfit to talk, and then claimed that he was not my son but an orphan adopted by Aafia and US reports that his DNA matched Aafia’s were also ‘cooked’. I refused to accept any of that as I had identified my son as soon as I saw a report on the electronic media of his arrest in Afghanistan .” When questioned on what basis was Aafia’s family†denying a meeting with his son, Amjad stated that the family is punishing him for divorcing Aafia. “Aafia’s mother and Dr Fowzia had warned me at the time of our divorce that they would take revenge†by not letting me meet the children,” he said adding “But now they are discouraging a meeting with Ahmad because they fear Ahmad will reveal the truth about Aafia’s activities and whereabouts of his siblings over these years.” 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.
Furthermore, Amjad listed the several allegations leveled against him over the years to justify his not meeting his children: First they accused him of kidnapping his three children soon after his divorce with Aafia. To deny this accusation, he lodged a complaint against the family with the Sindh Police and requested officials to help him locate his children, but to no avail.
Later, Aafia’s family accused him of being an abusive husband and father preventing the children from meeting their father. “Aafia’s mother has also accused me in the media of changing the children’s names whereas in reality they had resorted to these tactics to conceal the children.” He alleged that Dr Fowzia also used the Asian Human Rights Commission, an NGO based in Honk Kong, to mislead the government about his two missing children. “The AHRC received the information about my two missing children being in an orphanage in Afghanistan from Dr Fowzia, who was diverting attention away from the place where the children really are.” claimed Amjad.
Earlier, when Aafia’s father died, the family held Amjad responsible for his death too claiming he suffered a stroke after he saw the divorce document. “That is simply not true because I mailed the document two days after Aafia’s father died and that too because I was unaware of the unfortunate incident. Their family never kept me posted on anything in the six-week period between our verbal and written divorce. I was just as shocked at his death.
“ Moreover, the family alleged that Aafia was in trouble and had been kidnapped because her former husband (Dr Amjad) handed over her personal diary to the FBI. “After this, false reports about Aafia’s arrest and Pakistani government’s involvement in handing her over to the US despite repeated denials by the Minister of Interior and other officials, started making headlines” claims the doctor, who has now re-married.
It is the whereabouts of his two children ñ Marium now aged 10, and six-year-old Suleiman ñ that worries him now, said Amjad. Like the coordinates of Dr Aafia Siddiqui remained a mystery after she was allegedly ‘picked up’ in March 2003, Dr Amjad believes Aafia’s family may be using the same tactics in the case of his two children, who are reportedly ‘missing’. ”I am sure they are around Karachi and in contact with their maternal family as both Aafia and the children were seen around their house here and in Islamabad on multiple occasions since their alleged disappearance in 2003. They may be living under an assumed identity just like Aafia and Ahmed had been living [as Saliha and Ali Ahsan] for five years before they got arrested,” believes the father. He said Dr Fowzia’s claim that the children are missing after being removed from the Bagram prison in Afghanistan ‘may be an attempt to attract sympathy of the government and the people and distract its attention from the real location.
DXer said
In a matter swirling with conflicting versions and positions, I find Aafia’s uncle to be a good source for information and insights. He previously has submitted this account for your consideration. Where it departs from what a psychiatrist (representing whichever party) has reported in any of the recent filings, I would tend to credit Mr. Faruqi’s account.
“Salient Features of the visit of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui at the residence of her uncle Mr. S. H. Faruqi at Islamabad, Pakistan On 22nd to 24th of January, 2008.
My door bell rang up on 22nd January in the evening about half an hour after the sun set. I personally went out. A gentleman in plain Pakistani clothes (shalwar qameez) said that he had brought a lady in his car (white Suzuki car) from Karachi Company bus stand (Sector G-9, Islamabad) who wanted to see me. I went near the car. A lady in black ‘burqa’ (Muslim women’s dress to hide the body contours) came out saying “O uncle I am Aafia”. Her complete body and face (except eyes) were hidden under the ‘burqa’ but I recognized the voice to my complete satisfaction. She was Aafia. I was greatly surprised and perplexed too but soon regained my normalcy and welcomed her and embraced her. I asked her to enter my house but she refused and instead requested me to take her to some isolated and peaceful place where she could talk to me in privacy. When I insisted on her entry to my house, she screamed and asked me not to insist on that as it would simply result in the destruction of my house as well as herself. On this I asked the same car driver (an employee of Ministry of Foreign Affairs using his car as a taxi after office hours) to drop us at the nearby located Taj Mahal restaurant in the Jinnah Super Market. He did it.
Dr. Aafia and myself sat at Taj Mahal restaurant for about one hour and later at Captain Cook fast food restaurant (also located in the Jinnah Super Market) for about 1? hour and talked on Dr. Aafia’s circumstances. Later I accommodated her in room no. 29 of ‘Islamabad Inn’, Street no. 44, F-7/1, Islamabad declaring her as my daughter. She passed one night at this guest house and the following day and the night between 23rd and 24th January at my house. I also called my sister Mrs. Ismat Siddiqui (Dr. Aafia’s mother) from Karachi on 23.1.08 early morning. Myself and my wife had quite detailed talks with Dr. Aafia about her last 5 years, about her captors, places of captivity and about the possibilities of her further staying at my house etc. The gist of these talks is summarized in the following points:
1. Throughout her stay at Islamabad Dr. Aafia did not show her face to anybody except to me (intentionally or un-intentionally) for a glimpse at Taj Mahal restaurant. She also did not put of her ‘burqa’ for even a minute.
2. When I had a glimpse of her face at Taj Mahal restaurant I noted that her face was not her normal face but has been changed apparently through plastic surgery especially at her nose which was totally changed. Her eyes were of course unchanged. When I questioned Dr. Aafia as to who and where changed her face through plastic surgery? she simply said:
“Nobody”
3. Dr. Aafia had a national identity card issued by the relevant department of the govt. of Pakistan in which there was a photograph which was not of the ‘original’ Aafia. It was quite different. Also it was of some Research Scholar of the Karachi University. The name of the lady was also different.
4. Dr. Aafia said she was then kept at some place in Lahore. She was released temporarily to collect data regarding some Al-Quaida suspects. But she slipped from there, took an Islamabad bound bus from some bus stand and came over to Islamabad.
5. Dr. Aafia told that since her abduction in 2003 she has not seen her 3 children and does not know any thing about them.
6. Throughout her stay at Islamabad Dr. Aafia insisted that arrangements may be made to send her to Taliban in Afghanistan as according to her they would not hand her over to her “enemies”.
7. She told that her American captors were more well behaved than the non-American ones.
8. She told that she did not know as to which different places she has been kept over the past years. Whatever she remembered was that she had remained in complete isolation. Those supplying her food were using hand gloves and face masks. They never spoke to her.
9. Her mother tried to give her an amount of Rs. 5,000/- while she was departing for Lahore on the morning of 24th January. At first she refused to accept but later accepted the same.
10. Almost whole of the night of 23rd and 24th January 2008 which she passed at my residence in a bed room she was found praying or reading Quran on the prayer rug at the floor of the room and not on the sleeping bed.
11. When told that we were calling some journalists for her interview, she very seriously opposed it and remarked that it will be simply killing her.
12. She earnestly appealed that we should not try to detain her then rather wait till the ouster of president Pervaiz Musharraf when she hopes to be released.
13. Dr. Aafia told us that of lately there had been a change and she had been transferred to a new place and to a new agency. She said that the new people were much better than the previous ones. They were looking after her well and had granted freedom of ‘outing’ from time to time.
14. Throughout her stay with us I felt that she had been ‘bugged’ and somebody sitting at Lahore or Islamabad was listening what she and we were speaking. I felt it from her behaviour (trying to keep, at times, her voice very low and her praises for Americans).
15. Dr. Aafia was carrying a large size black coloured parachute cloth made hand bag which was weighing about 5 to 7 kg. She never allowed anybody at my house to open it and see its contents. When asked about the contents by me she told that these were some books which her captors had allowed her to keep.”
DXer said
Now we are not going to talk about the lovely and pious Aafia — tasked to do research on biological weapons — because Dr. Ayman gets mighty sensitive on the subject — cranky even.
Suffice it to say that they grabbed her thumb drive with her emails with US-based cell members.
DXer said
Is Cynthia McKinney just uninformed or does she in fact count herself still among the supporters of the woman who agreed to take part on an attack using anthrax if asked.Aafia says she spent 6 months at the Karachi Technical Institute at the request of her husband, KSM’s nephew, 911 plotter Al-Balucchi. We demand our politicians be accountable and responsible. Does a different rule apply to leftist politicians out of office? Why is a woman researching biological weapons for use against the US a daughter of Pakistan? And if she is, how can it be said that Pakistan is an ally? My personal view, being a leftist myself, is Ms. McKinney is just not informed of the facts and instead was relying on information from the likes of Fowzia, Ismaat, and Yvonne Ridley. She should ask them about the information regarding Aafia’s research in Karachi and ask Fowzia for corroboration. Fowzia disputes Aafia’s claims. On what basis? Ms. McKinney should speak with Aafia’s ex-husband, her uncle and her US lawyers — and Aafia’s son — to check her facts.
One way to be an effective advocate for liberal causes is to be misleading — tell stories, use fake photos, hold mass rallies emphasizing slogans, appeal to nationalistic pride, and religious dogma..
Another is to tell truth to power after taking care to get your facts right.
Certainly, Ramsey Clark, former Attorney General of the United States, should at least come to terms that his co-counsel, Montasser Al-Zayat, announced that Dr. Ayman was going to use anthrax against the US to retaliate for the rendering of the Blind Sheikh and other EIJ leaders. Ramsey Clark at least should own up to what Aafia’s defense counsel disclosed about Aafia’s research on biological weapons for use in a mass attack on the United States.
Pakistan News Releases
December 8, 2012 Saturday
I am here for Aafia and I have seen there is only one voice: Cynthia McKinney – Press Release issued by Aafia Movement
December 08, 2012 (PPI-OT)
Following is the text of press release issued by Aafia Movement
Quote
Addressing to a Press Conference in the Lahore Press club, American delegate human rights activist and six-time elected Congress woman Ms. Cynthia McKinney said “I am here for Dr. Aafia Siddiqui. When I first learned of her situation I decided to do all that I could do to reverse the injustice to this poor innocent woman.
The United States has more to give Pakistan than drones, bombs and missiles. The United States can give Aafia back. The 86 years is a political sentence. Anything is possible in Politics. The Pakistan Leadership just has to ask. One wonders what is more important to ask as an Ally than the daughter of the Nation.
How can they face their voters, we use our elected offices to right wrongs and do the will of the people. Returning Dr. Aafia to Pakistan is the will of the people. People power can become very rebellious when it comes to dignity and honor of their daughters. I sensed the emotion within the masses. I have met the left wing parties and the right wing parties. I am travelled from Karachi to Peshawar, Islamabad Attock And now Lahore. I saw the outpouring of the public. I felt the emotion, it touched my heart. There is so much love and affection.
Sara Flounders an American political writer and member of the Secretariat of Workers World Party, as well as a principal leader of the International Action Center, while addressing the Press Conference said Aafia’s Case is a political case and she attended the trial and sentencing. Aafia was tortured, the 86 years was shameful and we realize a political sentence and her rendition illegal.
The solution is Political and diplomatic. It does not lie in the courts even though they are needed to keep channels open. We believe the political solution is simple and glaringly obvious however, this requires concrete action from Pakistani government.
She further emphasized that by releasing Aafia the US and Pak leaders can reverse a step in recovering the damaged sovereignty. We are amazed at the enormous support and unity for Aafia. She has become the symbol for world peace and torture. Humanitarians across the globe are out raged at the horrendous treatment that she has had to endure. Tangible action is worth more than dollars.
Dr. Fauzia Siddiqui, Sister of Dr. Aafia said General Kiyani has been termed the most powerful man in Pakistan, 28th in the world and most powerful man in Pakistan, I can’t accept that if he wishes Aafia still remains locked up.
Our people need Dignity and Pride and Recognition of our sovereignty, which was lost the day the day a dictator started selling our brothers and sisters to a foreign master. The people of Pakistan need concrete accomplishments. There can be no better way to win the hearts of people than to secure the release of Aafia.
She further said everywhere there is talk of elections and votes. Elections are not just votes bought and sold. Candidates and coalitions must address the hunger for justices. People need concrete accomplishments and fulfillment of promises, like the promise to bring Aafia home. The political leader able to deliver Aafia back to Pakistan will have the support and gratitude of millions. Aafia is the daughter of the nation, the insult to the whole nation of her unjust imprisonment and continued torture and isolation must be ended.
Support is growing among political parties for signing the pledge that no one in Pakistani custody may be released to the US until Aafia Siddiqui comes home to Pakistan.
For more information, Contact:
Aafia Movement
140-E, Block 7 Gulshan-e-Iqbal,
Karachi – Pakistan
Tel: 0333-2148780, 021-34969048
Unquote
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DXer said
How can it be said that advocates for a woman agreeing to use anthrax in a terrorist attack on the United States is a peace advocate? They aren’t. They are dupes. The Blind Sheikh once bemusedly said that the jihadists would stop using such “doves” (as he called them) when the US stopped using secret evidence.
DXer said
Ms. McKinney explained her support of Aafia in 2010 at the time of her sentence:
“MCKINNEY: What an incredible sentence for Dr. Aafia! What an incredible reflection of “justice” in the United States. The United States territory was stolen from indigenous people who were then eliminated by genocide. Africans were stolen from their homeland and transported to the U.S. and enslaved for centuries. Anyone who is surprised by incidents of injustice in the United States is someone who is not aware of U.S. history.”
I have corresponded with various leftists and they tend not to care about pressing for documentary evidence or reading what is available. They are only interested in forwarding their poilitical argument — appealing to their constituency.
In true crime and counterintelligence analysis, there are too many innocent lives at stake to be clouded by politics — from whatever side of the spectrum. For example, injection of politics from the right side of spectrum led to a counterproductive invasion and occupation of Iraq.
If you want to know what Aafia did over the course of the five year period, you might start by turning to her account. What she says does not square with Fowzia’s and Yvonne Ridley’s account. It does not square with the account of her first or second husband, or KSM, or her uncle, or her defense counsel.
Better yet, turn to the account of her second husband, 9-11 operative Al-Balucchi (KSM’s nephew). It was Al-Balucchi’s colleague, Al-Hawsawi who had the anthrax spraydrying documents on his laptop when it was seized in the home of bacteriologist Abdul Qadoos Khan.
http://www.amerithrax.wordpress.com
DXer said
KSM asked help of Majid Khan — now charged at Gitmo with various bad acts dating back to January 2002 timeframe — in contaminating a reservoir in Upstate New York (serving New York City) with a poison. What contaminant would have been used? Anthrax? Cyanide? Something else?
What did he say about Aafia? Did Aafia know Jdey? Did Aafia know Adnan El-Shukrijumah?
http://www.lawfareblog.com/2012/02/military-commissions-charges-sworn-against-majid-khan/
The charges allege that Khan joined with members of al Qaeda in Pakistan to plan and prepare attacks against diverse targets in the United States, Indonesia, and elsewhere after Sept. 11, 2001. Specifically, they allege that Khan:
• Used a fraudulently obtained travel document to travel from his residence in Baltimore, Md., to Karachi, Pakistan, in January of 2002;
• Conspired with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed regarding a plot to blow-up underground gasoline storage tanks at gas stations in the United States and other domestic plots;
• At Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s direction, recorded a “martyr video,” donned an explosive vest, and sat in a mosque waiting for Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf to arrive so that Khan could assassinate him, an attempt that was foiled when Musharraf never arrived;
• Traveled in March of 2002 from Karachi to Baltimore, where he performed tasks for al Qaeda and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, including purchasing a laptop computer for al Qaeda and contacting a military recruiter to obtain materials regarding the United States military, which he intended to give to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed;
• Upon returning to Pakistan in August 2002, worked directly for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Ali Abdul al-Aziz Ali, and other al Qaeda associates, all of whom were evading capture by United States and Pakistani authorities;
• At the direction of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Ali Abdul al-Aziz Ali, traveled with his wife in December of 2002 from Pakistan to Bangkok, Thailand, where he evaded notice by posing as a tourist;
• While in Bangkok, delivered $50,000 in al Qaeda funds to a southeast Asia-based al Qaeda affiliate, which in turn delivered the money to the allied terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah, which used the funding to detonate a bomb in August of 2003 at the J.W. Marriott Hotel in Jakarta, Indonesia, killing eleven people, wounding at least eighty-one others, and severely damaging the hotel.
Based on these allegations and others outlined in the charge sheet, Khan is charged with conspiracy, murder and attempted murder in violation of the law of war, providing material support for terrorism, and spying.
DXer said
From Baltimore Suburbs to a Secret CIA Prison; Family…
Pay-Per-View –
Washington Post – Sep 10, 2006
Mohammed allegedly asked Khan to research poisoning US reservoirs and considered him for …
DXer said
KSM’s Plan To Poison A Reservoir In Upstate New York
The recently charged Majid Khan is just one of a number of US-based operatives active in 2001. The claim that Al Qaeda was not responsible for the anthrax mailings because all the hijackers were dead — well, is really stupid.
For example, young Canadian Mohamed Mansour Jabarah was the courier and connection between Karachi and Kuala Lumpur. In 2002, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) delivered the former St. Catharines man to U.S. authorities, upon his written consent. St. Catherines is near Niagara Falls. He had been arrested in Oman, Jordan in June 2002, after being implicated in the plot to bomb American and Israeli embassies in Singapore. He was first taken to Brooklyn where he has been questioned by the FBI. Khalid Mohammed reports that Bin Laden was reportedly said to value Jabarah’s fluent English and his clean Canadian passport. He served as a go-between between the leaders in Karachi and operatives in Kuala Lumpur, and had a leadership role in a bombing plot there. He was let out of jail and while cooperating, lived with some FBI agents.
After he learned that a childhood friend was killed in an attack on US Marines in Kuwait, he vowed to kill his captors. In a search of his room, agents found he had a plan for a steak knife that did not involve cutting his porterhouse. Authorities also found pictures of bin Laden, maps of Fort Dix, documents about New York’s drinking water supply and letters that lamented the fall of the Taliban and railed against America. The reference to New York’s drinking water supply brings to mind KSM’s plot to poison a reservoir in Upstate New York. Bloomberg explains: “He also had a U.S. Army memo describing New York City’s drinking water system, a map of the city’s water supply and testing results.”
Jabarah spent 3 weeks living with KSM in August 2001. KSM taught him how to travel and conduct surveillance in stealth mode. Jabarah was a go-between Khalid Mohammed in Karachi and Hambali in Kuala Lumpur. He delivered the money for the bombing attacks planned for Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines. Arrested in March 2002, he had joined Al Qaeda in May 2001. In his interrogation, the Catholic-schooled youth said that KSM had asked him to “go to Malaysia to meet with individuals who were planning an operation against the US and Israeli embassies in the Philippines.” KSM told the young man that he must leave Karachi to deliver the money to Hambali, Al Qaeda’s point man in Southeast Asia and the military chief for Jemiah Islamiyah, before September 11. He flew out to deliver the money on September 10, 2001. In January 2008, Jabarah was sentenced to life in prison.
Playing similar roles with respect to helping with logistics, KSM identified Majid Khan and Aafia Siddiqui as Al Qaeda operatives. KSM allegedly asked former Maryland resident Majid Khan to research contaminating a reservoir. What contaminant would have been used? Anthrax? Cyanide? Was it cyanide such as the thwarted attack against the US embassy in Rome in 2002? Some unidentified chemical intended to be smuggled in using the Paracha shipping container? Would the koran permit such indiscriminate murder of innocents? A recent study shows that anthrax is resistant to chlorine, but the officials typically think anthrax would be ineffective given the dilution.
In February 2003, Majid Khan had met with Uzair Paracha and someone described as a “chemistry professor.” Paracha and his father Saifullah had meetings with al-Qaeda members Majid Khan and senior operative Ammar al-Baluchi, who about that time married Aafia. In the prosecution of Uzair Paracha, the AUSA said Aafia Siddiqui was willing to participate in an anthrax attack if asked. She opened up a P.O. Box to facilitate Majid Khan’s reentry into the country.
New water-surveillance systems are being tested that promise to detect biological attacks more quickly and accurately than is possible today. Ever since the anthrax mailings, the Homeland Security Department has been concerned about the risk that public water supplies will be poisoned. Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories, the University of Cincinnati, and Argonne National Laboratory have paired up with the Environmental Protection Agency to develop the Water Sentinel Program: software that monitors municipal water systems. It was being tested in Albuquerque.
I once had a local certified lab do a lot of testing of water as another unrelated interest. Albuquerque is an interesting choice given the high levels of arsenic there. (With arsenic, it is very difficult to get the levels down short of dilution or incurring substantial capital costs). Arsenic occurs due to naturally occurring geothermal springs. I tested a bottled water from a major soda company’s distributor in Northern Mexico that I picked up in Phoenix and it tested above the 10 parts per billion (“ppb”) limit — 13 ppb and 26 ppb. The company gave me a single test showing that they tested it at 9 ppb. Its NYC law firm told me that they weren’t willing to do any further testing in the US because it would be against his client’s interest. Indeed. The FDA did nothing. The company did not notice a recall.
Separately, the DOJ and United States Attorney even let FDA Commissioner Lester Crawford off the hook without it coming out that he resigned immediately after I emailed his office of a massive problem with benzene in soda. How was that a proper allocution related to his guilty plea to the misdemeanors? The same US Attorney in fact had the key role in Amerithrax. I had not realized the Commissioner was a drinking water expert who already knew about the problem. I wrote the FDA’s CFSAN Director the same day (on September 21, 2005), and she later acknowledged she got the email. After I wrote Wednesday afternoon, he did the right thing in resigning Friday morning given the $62,000 in Pepsi stock he owned. By just dropping an email to all employees Friday morning and walking out the building, however — and not admitting why he was resigning — the benzene problem almost got swept under the rug like the arsenic problem.
The day after Dr. Crawford sent his email out announcing his resignation, I stridently complained before the FDA’s Assistant General Counsel on Saturday in front of 30 witnesses at a conference in Boston on soda and childhood obesity. I asked why I had not received a response. I don’t mean to complain too much because he did resign and the FDA finally acted after I got Germany and others to act. But if the United States government is no more effective than the FDA and the state agencies in testing water, and if journalists continue to miss the story that they have missed for 10 years about Al Qaeda’s anthrax planning and its plan to use the cover of universities and charities, then we will just have to count on the militants appreciating that it is haram (forbidden) to poison innocents, particularly children. The late “911 imam”
Anwar Aulaqi was the fellow who guided key hijackers and operatives Nawaf Al-Hamzi and Almihdhar. While hiding in Yemen in May 2010. Awlaqi announced that islamic law permitted killing one million U.S. civilians. It turns out that parents need to raise their kids better to, above all, seek to avoid harm to innocents.
DXer said
Wanted Wanted Women: Faith, Lies, and the War on Terror: The Lives of Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Aafia Siddiqui
byDeborah Scroggins
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/wanted-women-deborah-scroggins/1100151002
Overview
A riveting look at militant Islam, Muslim women’s rights, and the war on terror—brought into focus through two lives on opposite sides: activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali and religious extremist Aafia Siddiqui.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali-born former member of the Dutch Parliament and the author of the international bestsellerInfidel, was raised as a Muslim fundamentalist in Kenya. A feminist, political analyst, writer, and fierce critic of her former religion, she champions the West in what she insists must be a war against Islam. Hirsi Ali’s personal tale of courage in the face of constant threats from violent, fanatic enemies has won the admiration of millions in America and around the world.
Aafia Siddiqui, a native of Pakistan, moved to the United States to pursue a doctorate in neuroscience. A decade later, she returned to Pakistan, where her involvement with al-Qaeda, including her marriage to one of the 9/11 plotters, led the CIA to regard her as one of the most dangerous terrorists in the world. Her disappearance, capture, and conviction in a New York City courtroom for attempted murder have earned her, too, admiration across the globe—from millions of radical Islamists.
Reconstructing the histories of these two women, award-winning author and journalist Deborah Scroggins weaves a provocative true-life thriller from two separate but strangely parallel lives in a time of bitter battle. Based on remarkable original research and reporting, Wanted Women traces their origins to explain why they chose opposite paths and how each has risen to become revered and reviled as an international symbol of her beliefs. Scroggins reveals controversial details about Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Aafia Siddiqui, and about the political machinations that have transformed them into emblems of a civilizational struggle. Wanted Women provides an illustrative take on our time, stripping away the illusions—about women, war, faith, and power—that have distorted the conflict on both sides.
Publishers Weekly
For Scroggins (Emma’s War), two women who, despite a “weird symmetry” in their lives, embody the split among Muslims regarding the West and the war on terror. Ayaan Hirsi Ali “fights only with words” against Islam, calling it a “destructive, nihilistic cult of death,” while there are numerous indicators that Aafia Siddiqui was preparing for a mass attack on America and the “enemies of Islam.” on the scale of 9/11. Somali-born Hirsi Ali, saying she was fleeing a forced marriage, sought asylum in Holland in 1992. Siddiqui came from a middle-class Pakistani family before moving to America to study at MIT and Brandeis, becoming a fanatical proponent of jihad. In Holland, Hirsi Ali joined Parliament and emerged as one of Islam’s harshest critics, which has gained her both admirers and enemies who threaten her life. Siddiqui traveled in the same circles as 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and became the most wanted woman in the world; she disappeared for four years before being arrested in 2008. Scroggins illuminates not only the disconnect between the West’s often one-dimensional perception of Islam and its multifaceted reality but the schisms within Islam itself. This meticulously researched, skillfully narrated account offers a nuanced look at political Islam and the “war on terror” through the eyes of two women on the front lines. (Jan.)
DXer said
Excerpt from New York Times:
Ms. Scroggins is a veteran reporter whose very good first book, “Emma’s War” (2002), was about a young British aid worker and tarnished idealism in the Sudan. In “Wanted Women” she seeks — and abundantly finds — what she calls the “weird symmetry” between her subjects.
“They were both in their early 30s,” she writes. “They were both fiercely intelligent. They both came from politically ambitious families. They had both been tossed about among Africa, Asia, Europe and the United States ever since childhood.” She adds: “They shared a kind of warrior mentality. Both prized fearlessness. They were both rebels.”
Just as interestingly, she alights upon “hints in their complicated backgrounds that each woman might have gone in a very different direction, perhaps even to the extent of Aafia Siddiqui becoming a Westernizing feminist and Ayaan Hirsi Ali becoming a militant Islamist.”
The bulk of “Wanted Women” is sturdy, well-reported, boots-on-the-ground biography. Ms. Scroggins moves through these women’s lives, seizing on piquant details. Thus we find Ms. Hirsi Ali as a young woman in Nairobi, where her family had moved, devouring Western writers from Dostoyevsky to Jacqueline Susann and thinking: “White people were always having these wonderful adventures that we couldn’t have, either because we weren’t allowed or because we couldn’t afford to.”
We witness Ms. Siddiqui throwing herself into volunteer work at M.I.T.’s Public Service Center, where she twice won its award for her efforts. “They couldn’t award me any more,” she said, “because two times was the limit for one person.”
As “Wanted Women” progresses, following these women is like watching two deciduous trees in an arboretum: while one soars and bends toward the light, the other shrivels and grows stunted. Ms. Hirsi Ali makes her way to the Netherlands and revels in that country’s freedoms. Ms. Siddiqui becomes more and more devout, rejecting drink and dance and music and movies, and pinning her black veil so that only her eyes are visible.
A gifted speaker, Ms. Siddiqui becomes an important fund-raiser for Islamic groups with links to Al Qaeda. She ultimately marries into the family of Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the principal architect of the 9/11 attacks. In 2010 she was sentenced to 86 years in prison for, while in captivity, the attempted murder and assault of United States personnel.
It is to Ms. Scroggins’s credit that this book is vastly more multidimensional than it at might first seem to be. She works hard to make both women come alive, and to both she is to some degree sympathetic. This book’s interwoven narratives allow her to strike chords that might otherwise have gone unstruck.
Yet by its second half “Wanted Women” becomes a rowdy assault on Ms. Hirsi Ali, whom Ms. Scroggins accuses of being imperious, deceitful, egomaniacal and divisive, of whipping up racial hatred through her unsubtle criticism of Islam. She swings lower, pointing out that Ms. Hirsi Ali used a ghostwriter and visited an “expensive hairdresser” to straighten her hair. She notes that Ms. Hirsi Ali supported the American-led invasion of Iraq, and that she has fallen in with the American Enterprise Institute, a right-wing research center.
But the portrait of Ms. Hirsi Ali is frequently so one-sided that the author seems nearly as needlessly combative and complexity-free as she claims Ms. Hirsi Ali has been. This sense is underscored in a narrative that compares Ms. Hirsi Ali’s life to that of a woman who, Ms. Scroggins writes, “was almost certainly plotting murder” and “perhaps prepared to further a biological or chemical attack on the United States on a scale to rival that of 9/11.”
Ms. Hirsi Ali is a complicated and imperfect person. But her fights have employed words and an attempt at reasoned debate, while Ms. Siddiqui left those things, and civilization, behind. It is possible to appreciate both burkas and bikinis and still wonder why this book’s sympathies seem to be with the woman who hoped to speak through the most destructive weaponry available.
DXer said
“gripping and finely textured double biography” — Economist
http://www.economist.com/node/21542369
DXer said
“While the parallels are fascinating, the book’s strength is in its clear-eyed yet sympathetic storytelling. Somehow Scroggins manages to convert a mountain of research into a fast-paced, truly gripping pair of stories.” — Boston Globe
http://articles.boston.com/2012-01-15/books/30622875_1_aafia-siddiqui-muslim-women-muslim-schools/2
DXer said
Deborah Scroggins writes in book Wanted Women: Pakistani neuroscientist was on US ‘kill or capture’ published Tuesday.
“To the outside world, Aafia seemed forgotten. Many wondered by the end of 2005 if she was locked in a secret CIA prison. But the silver-haired former head of the weapons of mass destruction unit at the Counterterrorist Center at the CIA, Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, told me after he retired that, far from being under arrest, Aafia remained for him the stuff of nightmares.
Mowatt-Larssen had a special deck of fifty-two playing cards made up. Each carried the face of a suspected terrorist he feared might be planning the next big attack. Aafia was the queen of spades, the only woman in the deck. Mowatt-Larssen wouldn’t have put her at the top of his list of potential mass murderers, but he couldn’t rule her out. She was his wild card.
As an intelligence officer, Mowatt-Larssen tried to put himself in the place of al-Qaeda’s leaders and to think as they would. He believed that they had been close, several times, to obtaining weap ons that could have caused huge casualties. In 2003, for example, the CIA heard that al-Qaeda had devised a small handheld weapon that could disperse hydrogen cyanide throughout an enclosed area, killing dozens or even hundreds of people. Al-Qaeda called it the mubtakkar, Arabic for “invention.” Around the time KSM was cap tured and Aafia went missing, the United States received information that an al-Qaeda cell in Bahrain had been ready to mount a mubtakkar attack on New York City’s subways but that Zawahiri had canceled the plan. Why did he cancel? Mowatt-Larssen feared that al-Qaeda’s number two had pulled back to work on a more spectacular strike.
The group’s biological and chemical weapons expert, an Egyptian named Abu Khabab al-Masri, was still at large.
Mowatt-Larssen believed that if al-Qaeda used Aafia properly, she could be of huge value. His hope was that, whether because she was a woman or because her bossy manner got on the nerves of its male leaders, al-Qaeda wouldn’t be able to exploit her full potential.
It wasn’t Aafia’s prowess as a scientist that worried Mowatt-Larssen the most. The FBI had gone through her records from MIT and Brandeis. She had not taken any notably advanced biology and chemistry courses, and there was no obvious application to jihad in her neuroscience Ph.D. What set her apart in his eyes was her combination of high intelligence (including general scientific know-how), religious zeal, and years of experience in the United States. “So far they have had very few people who have been able to come to the U.S. and thrive,” he said. “Aafia is different. She knows about U.S. immigration procedures and visas. She knows how to enroll in American educational institutions. She can open bank accounts and transfer money. She knows how things work here. She could have been very useful to them simply for her understanding of the U.S.”
Mowatt-Larssen and his team had not forgotten the documents found in the Qadoos house at the time of KSM’s arrest. They had shown that Abu Khabab al-Masri, the Egyptian weapons expert, was ready to produce botulinum, salmonella, and cyanide, and was close to producing anthrax. They believed Aafia had a connection both to the Qadoos family and to Amir Aziz, the Lahore orthopedic surgeon who had been accused of helping al-Qaeda obtain anthrax. They also thought she was better equipped than any of them to be creative in using such poisons against the United States. “She had the imagi nation to come up with the next 9/11,” Mowatt-Larssen said. “The question was whether they would listen to her.”
He felt they might take some of her suggestions but might leave her out of the loop when it came to operational planning. He had heard what detainees such as Aafia’s second husband, Ali, had said about her. (Alas, the reports of these interrogations are still deeply secret.) Even with the hardest core of al-Qaeda operatives, she had a reputation for being headstrong. “I remember thinking at the time, ‘She must drive them crazy,’” Mowatt-Larsson told me. But he couldn’t be sure. The CIA had never pinned down her exact role. They just knew that “she was always in the picture. Connections between her and other people the FBI was looking at surfaced in just about every al-Qaeda investigation with a U.S. angle. She was always on our radar.”
At the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, Aafia’s name was prominent on a different list, another former official in the Bush administration told me. This was a list of suspected al-Qaeda terrorists whom the U.S. government had authorized the CIA to “kill or capture” on sight. Once again, Aafia wasn’t at the top of the list. But she was on it and she stayed there.
Unfortunately from the U.S. point of view, the CIA could not easily operate by itself in Pakistan. Thus, when it came to finding Aafia or anyone else on the list, it usually had to rely on the ISI. And most of the time the ISI gave the Americans nothing. Despite the millions of dollars in rewards that Washington was offering, the ISI seldom, on its own initiative, arrested even foreign al-Qaeda sus pects, much less Pakistanis.
So the CIA wasn’t surprised that its Pakistani counterparts showed little interest in finding a fellow Pakistani who was also a woman. “Everyone has patrons and protectors,” Mowatt-Larssen said. And Aafia, as a female and a member of a respected Deobandi family, was even more sheltered than most from the prying of U.S. investigators.
The Americans tried to escape their dependence on Pakistani intelligence by playing from an American strength: technology. The phones and e-mails of Pakistanis suspected of links to people on the target list were tapped by the National Security Agency. Ismat and Fowzia no doubt fell into that suspect category, as did some senior politicians and generals who the United States believed were shield ing militants. The former official in the Bush administration said that if the Americans happened to overhear the whereabouts of one of their targets, they would go to President Musharraf with the in formation. They would ask him for permission to capture the person and take “lethal action” if they failed to capture him.
But Musharraf didn’t always agree. If he didn’t want to go along, he might say, and in some cases he might be telling the truth, that the targeted person was actually an ISI asset whom the Pakistanis were using to infiltrate al-Qaeda. (Later it would be widely rumored that the ISI used Aafia to gather information on militant circles.) In that case, the United States refrained from action. In the years before the Americans began using drones to attack suspected mili tants (and eventually a Navy SEAL team to kill Osama bin Laden) in Pakistan, there was nothing else they could do.
But I have yet to find a source who recalls any such discussion of Aafia. She seemed to have disappeared into thin air.”
DXer said
Wanted Women: Faith, Lies, and the War on Terror: The Lives of Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Aafia Siddiqui Deborah Scroggins ) is due out in January 2012.
DXer said
Note that the fact that the Detainee Assessments have been leaked by an unofficial source likely would not be held to affect their discoverability under FOIA.
ACLU v . DOD, 628 F.3d 612 (D.C. Cir. Jan. 18, 2011) (Sentelle, J.). The D.C. Circuit affirms the district court’s decision that the CIA properly withheld transcripts of Combat Status Review Tribunals and documents submitted by detainees in connection with those hearings pursuant to Exemptions 1 and 3. Public domain/waiver: The Circuit rejects appellant’s contention that the withheld information is the same as that contained in “three sets of declassified and released government documents” and a Red Cross report that was leaked to a journalist. Instead, the Circuit finds “[r]eview of the government documents cited by [appellant] supports the CIA’s assertion that there are substantive differences between the disclosed documents and the information that has been withheld” and notes that “[d]espite [appellant’s] arguments to the contrary, none of these documents contains a comprehensive description of the actual capture, detainment, or interrogation of any specific detainee.” With respect to the Red Cross report, the Circuit notes that it is “hard pressed to understand [appellant’s] contention that the release of a nongovernment document by a nonofficial source can constitute a disclosure affecting the applicability of the FOIA exemptions.” The Circuit finds that “[b]ecause the Red Cross report was not ‘made public through an official and documented disclosure,’ the information that it contains cannot be considered ‘officially acknowledged.'”
DXer said
Back in April 2005, I wrote about Jamil Qasim Saeed Mohammed, the microbiology student in Karachi who was helping Sufaat buy the equipment for the lab that was to be shipped to Kandahar.
Zawahiri’s Plan To Obtain the Ames Anthrax Strain
http://www.globalpolitician.com/2612-terrorism
I explained that Ayman Zawahiri had a scientist named Rauf attending conferences sponsored by Porton Down, UK’s biodefense facility, for the purpose of obtaining the virulent anthrax. The scientist’s handwritten notes reportiing on his efforts are available through the Freedom of Information Act.
On November 1, 2001, not long after the anthrax mailings, an article ran in the Chicago Times called “Pakistan’s scientists under scrutiny.” With a dateline Islamabad, Pakistan, the story began: “The day after Pakistan handed over Yemeni microbiologist Jamil Qasim Saeed Mohammed to U.S. agents, authorities stepped up their search for other scientists and students who may have maintained links to Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda network, Pakistani intelligence sources said this week.”
Jamil Qasim Saeed Mohammed was a Yemeni microbiology PhD student in his final year who had been flown out of the country on a private jet operated by the CIA in late 2001. He had assisted Malaysian anthrax lab tech Yazid Sufaat in setting up a lab that was intended to manufacture anthrax.
Jamil Qasim Saeed Mohammed was indicted along with Boston cab driver Hijazi and others in connection with the earlier Cole bombing.
Al Qaeda anthrax lab technician Yazid Sufaat was arrested in December 2001 when he tried to sneak back into Malaysia.
Then, in December 2002, Jang publication “The News” (in English), in reporting on a raid of a compound of doctors in Lahore, Pakistan let drop a remarkable sentence about the microbiologist who actually played a central role in seeking to obtain the Ames anthrax strain for Ayman Zawahiri. The article noted, as reported by the CIA’s Foreign Broadcasting Information Service, that “Well-placed sources pointed out the Manawan arrests were also part of the chain of events which started from the arrest of PCSIR’s Pakistan Council of Scientific and Industrial Research microbiologist of Dr. Abdur Rauf and interrogations of Dr. Amer Aziz.” [Dr. Aziz was Dr. Batarfi’s mentor].
Where is Jamil Qasim Saeed Mohammed? Who does he think is responsible for the Fall 2001 anthrax mailings?
Where is Yazid Sufaat? (After being released by Malaysia not too long ago, he fled to Pakistan). Who does he think is responsible for the Fall 2001 anthrax mailings?
Where is Dr. Amer Aziz? He is a highly respected orthopedic surgeon who treated Bin Laden after 9/11. Who does he think is responsible for the Fall 2001 anthrax mailings?
Where is Dr. Batarfi? Who does he think is responsible for the Fall 2001 anthrax mailings?
Both Dr. Ayman Zawahiri and Jamil Qasim were connected to Cole as was a member of the so-called Boston cell, Jordanian-American Hijazi. Hijazi was first exposed to radical Islam while studying business at California State University, Sacramento, in 1991. Who does Jordianian-American Hijazi think is responsible for the anthrax mailings?
1/ Jamil Qasim Saeed Mohammed was a Yemeni microbiology student at Karachi University who was arrested in October 2001 by the Pakistani ISI and handed over in absolute secrecy to the United States following their declaration of a war on terror.[1]
Katz, Samuel M. “Relentless Pursuit: The DSS and the manhunt for the al-Qaeda terrorists”, 2002
2/ In October, for instance, a Yemeni microbiology student wanted in connection with the bombing of the USS Cole was flown from Pakistan to Jordan on a U.S.-registered Gulfstream jet after Pakistan’s intelligence agency surrendered him to U.S. authorities at the Karachi airport, Pakistani government sources said. The hand-over of the shackled and blindfolded student, Jamil Qasim Saeed Mohammed, who was alleged to be an al Qaeda operative, occurred in the middle of the night at a remote corner of the airport without extradition or deportation procedures, the sources said.
Rajiv Chandrasekaran and Peter Finn, “U.S. Behind Secret Transfer of Terror Suspects,” Washington Post, March 11, 2002.
3/ Alissa Rubin, “Pakistan Hands Over Man in Terror Probe,” Los Angeles Times, October 28, 2001.
4/ Masood Anwar, “Mystery Man Handed Over to US Troops in Karachi,” The News International (Pakistan), October 26, 2001. Full text available at this link from FreeRepublic of all places.
5/ Amnesty International, “United States America: The Threat of a Bad Example,” August 19, 2003, See p. 32. (“Amnesty first raised the case of Jamil Qasim Saeed Mohammed with U.S. authorities in April 2002. It has received no reply and does not know his whereabouts or if he is in detention.”)
DXer said
Aafia Siddiqui and WikiLeaks
By Editorial
Published: April 27, 2011
http://tribune.com.pk/story/157873/aafia-siddiqui-and-wikileaks/
DXer said
I understand that Yazid Sufaat, upon being released by Malaysia a year or so ago, fled to Pakistan. So I understand why reporters cannot locate him to ask him who he thinks is responsible for the anthrax mailings.
But Aafia, in contrast, is available to ask. And some reporter may find the right pitch to obtain an exclusive interview where she is able to speak her peace.