Aafia Siddiqui - Arrest in Afghanistan

Arrest in Afghanistan

Siddiqui was approached by Ghazni Province police officers outside the Ghazni governor's compound on the evening of July 17, 2008 in the city of Ghazni. With two small bags at her side, crouching on the ground, she aroused the suspicion of a man who feared she might be concealing a bomb under the burqua that she was wearing. A shopkeeper noticed a woman in a burqa drawing a map, which is suspicious in Afghanistan where women are generally illiterate. She was accompanied by a teenage boy about 12, whom she reportedly claimed was an orphan she had adopted. She said her name was Saliha, that she was from Multan in Pakistan, and that the boy's name was Ali Hassan. Discovering that she did not speak either of Afghanistan's main dialects, Pashtu or Dari, the officers regarded her as suspicious.

In a bag she was carrying, the police found that she had a number of documents written in Urdu and English describing the creation of explosives, chemical weapons, Ebola, dirty bombs, and radiological agents (which discussed mortality rates of certain of the weapons), and handwritten notes referring to a "mass casualty attack" that listed various U.S. locations and landmarks (including the Plum Island Animal Disease Center, the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, Wall Street, the Brooklyn Bridge, and the New York City subway system), according to her indictment. The Globe also mentioned one document about a 'theoretical' biological weapon that did not harm children. She also reportedly had documents detailing U.S. "military assets", excerpts from The Anarchist's Arsenal, a one-gigabyte digital media storage device that contained over 500 electronic documents (including correspondence referring to attacks by "cells", describing the U.S. as an enemy, and discussing recruitment of jihadists and training), maps of Ghazni and the provincial governor's compounds and the mosques he prayed in, and photos of Pakistani military people. Other notes described various ways to attack enemies, including by destroying reconnaissance drones, using underwater bombs, and using gliders.

She also had "numerous chemical substances in gel and liquid form that were sealed in bottles and glass jars", according to the later complaint against her, and about two pounds of sodium cyanide, a highly toxic poison. The U.S. prosecutors later said that sodium cyanide is lethal even when ingested in small doses (even less than five milligrams), and various of the other chemicals she had can be used in explosives. Abdul Ghani, Ghazni's deputy police chief, said she later confessed that she intended to carry out a suicide attack against the provincial governor.

The officers arrested her, as she cursed them, and took her to a police station. She said that the boy found with her was her stepson, Ali Hasan; Siddiqui subsequently admitted he was her biological son, when DNA testing proved the boy to be Ahmed.

There are conflicting accounts of the events following her arrest, which led to her being sent to the United States for trial. American authorities say that two FBI agents, a U.S. Army warrant officer, a U.S. Army captain, and their U.S. military interpreters arrived in Ghazni the following day, on July 18, to interview Siddiqui at the Afghan National Police facility where she was being held.