Synagogue Hostage Siege In Texas Raises Questions For Pakistan

Jailed terrorist at centre of incident regarded a cause celebre in Pakistan

- Nirmal Ghosh

The weekend’s hostage incident in a Texas synagogue has surfaced awkward questions for Pakistan.

Malik Faisal Akram, a 44-year-old British national, was killed by Federal Bureau of Investigation agents last Saturday following an 11-hour stand-off with police and law enforcement officers at the Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas. The four hostages, including a rabbi, were rescued and unharmed.

Akram appears to have been demanding the release of Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani scientist who was sentenced by a New York federal court in 2010 to 86 years in prison on terrorism charges.

Siddiqui has been of great interest to a long line of groups including Al-Qaeda, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, and the Taliban, all of which have repeatedly tried to get her released.

Intriguingly, the Pakistan government has also repeatedly tried to get Siddiqui freed.

Al-Qaeda’s interest is understandable. Siddiqui, 49, a mother of three, is sometimes referred to as “Lady Al-Qaeda”.

Her second marriage was to Ammar al-Baluchi – nephew of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the “principle architect” of the Sept 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and currently in United States custody at Guantanamo Bay.

A neuroscientist, Siddiqui studied in the US, graduating from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and getting a PhD from Brandeis University. She reportedly lived in the US from around 1991 to June 2002, returning for about a week on Dec 25, 2002.