More on the Gray Lady of al Qaeda, Aafia Siddiqui

Mark your calendars. Don't miss the show! Her next court date is September 3rd.

Did you know her family never lodged a missing person's complaint with the Pakistani police the whole time she was gone? Hmmm? That her colleagues describe her as a "tiny woman with big convictions" that "urged women to wear the hijab and refuse to shake hands with men"? When Bosnia occurred she "sprang to action:

"...giving slide shows and rousing speeches to collect donations for their cause. She also later established a non-profit organisation to spread Islamic teachings. According to the paper, as a student in the US Siddiqui raised funds for the Muslim victims of the Bosnian genocide to be sent to the Al-Kifah Refugee Centre in Brooklyn, which the Justice Department maintains diverted such funds to militants. Besides, she was also involved in the establishment of the Dawa Resource Centre, a programme run from a Boston mosque, distributing Qurans and offering Islamic advice to prison inmates.

Here's what wICKipedia has to say about Al-Kifah Refugee Center:

According to Cooperative Research the center had clandestine links to forces fighting in Afghanistan dating to the late 1980s, when the fighters enjoyed American support in their struggle against the occupiers. They assert that funds raised in the USA were covertly sent to Maktab al-Khidamat an organization they say Osama Bin Laden was later to transform into al Qaeda.

There's more dirty Muslim business at Al Kifah (the struggle) than you can shake a stick at. Really want to make yourself sick? Read an interesting history of the organization here. I swear, it will make you want to holler.

But back to Aafia:

The neuroscience doctor was born on March 2, 1972, came to Texas in 1990, graduated from the MIT in 1995 and obtained a PhD from Brandeis University in cognitive neuroscience in 2001. Her three children are: Ahmed (12), Mariam (10) and Suleman (5 ). She left for Pakistan in 2002, returned in February 2003 and returned almost immediately. She disappeared in March of that year.

The US security and intelligence authorities believe that Dr Aafia was underground of her own will and accord, and that for her own reasons she went missing in 2003 from Karachi.

Besides, the US intelligence believes that the terror suspects three children were in the safe hands of those who were sheltering her. It is noteworthy that her family never lodged a missing person report with the Pakistani police even once during the five years it now claims Siddiqui was in US or/and Pakistani custody, say the US agencies.

It's important to note that pulling a disappearing act is not exactly a new trick for al Kifah members. Mysterious US Militant arrested on charges, disappears from view.

His name? Abu Ubaidah Yahya, formerly known as Karl Dexter Turner and the former security chief for the Al Kiyah Refugee Center.

The latest from Pakistan: Lahore Doctors are protesting her detention and her cause celebre is becoming a political football with the Senate, the Parliament and now, with Musharraf's departure - presidential politics. (And it's all a grand charade to whip up the Islamists and fuel their paranoia in order to consolidate their political power - IMO, of course.)