Mystery behind Aafia Siddiqiu's 'arrest' deepens

'For you it's just another story. If you want the truth go to Ghazni where you will get more than I can ever tell you about my sister," said a distraught Fouzia Siddiqi, speaking with IPS, in a voice breaking with helpless desperation.

Fouzia's younger sister, Aafia Siddiqi, 35, made headlines after the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) announced, on Aug. 4, her "arrest" for attempting to "murder and assault" United States' officers and employees outside the governor's office in Ghazni, Afghanistan, on Jul. 17. No soldiers were reported injured in the incident but Aafia received bullet injuries.

Aafia, a neuroscientist, has since been lodged in a Manhattan jail and the preliminary hearing of her case set for Sep. 3. According to charges framed against her in a New York court, she was, at the time of her arrest, found carrying documents describing how to make explosives and chemical, biological and radiological weapons. She, allegedly, also had a list of landmarks in the U.S. and ˜'chemical substances'' in sealed containers.

Aafia's resurfacing in Ghazni, five years after her disappearance in the southern port city of Karachi, has shaken the nation. The whereabouts of her three children, who were with her at the time she was kidnapped, remain unclear.

Aafia's story began in March 2003 when this Pakistani woman, then 30, along with her three children, then aged between four months and seven years, became one more victim of numerous disappearances that have been linked to Pakistan's role in the U.S.-led ‘war-on-terror'. The independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) has stated that she was initially picked up by an intelligence agency in Pakistan and so the "Pakistan government is also accountable for the crime".

The handing over of Aafia to U.S. authorities has been criticised by Pakistani political leaders. "This is not only a heinous act, but tantamount to selling the country's sovereignty and independence to another nation. It is shameful, utterly humiliating to every Pakistani," said Qazi Hussain Ahmed, leader of the Jamaat -e-Islami party at a press conference here last week.

"It is high time that the present government act like an independent sovereign nation and form its own foreign policy leaving behind the legacy of a discredited military dictator," Ahmed stressed, referring Pervez Musharraf who resigned as president on Monday, amid criticism at home of his pro-U.S. policies.

In 2004, then FBI director Robert Mueller named Aafia among the seven al-Qaeda associates who were being sought in connection with possible terrorist threats to the U.S.

Two weeks prior to Aafia's arrest in Ghazni, a British journalist, Yvonne Ridley, held a press conference in Islamabad, in which she identified Aafia as ‘Prisoner No. 650', being held in solitary confinement at the detention centre attached to the U.S. air base at Bagram.

Ridley referred to the book ‘Enemy Combatant' by Moazzam Beg, a former Guantanamo and Bagram prisoner, who had mentioned hearing endless screams, apparently by a woman being tortured, during his detention at Bagram.

"Based on the testimony of detainees held in Bagram in 2003 and 2004, it is clear that there was a woman being held at the base. Whether or not that woman was Aafia Siddiqi is something that, at the moment, cannot be verified," said Asim Qureshi, senior researcher with the rights group Cageprisoners. "However, Dr. Siddiqi has confirmed that she was held in Bagram for years," said Qureshi, responding to queries from IPS.

Fouzia describes her sister, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Brandeis University alumna, as a ‘'fun-loving people's person," who had completed her PhD on "how to improve memory among mentally challenged children''.

"I fear for her life. They probably don't want her to see the light of day,'' said Fouzia.'If they release her, the truth will come out."***continues***