Coinciding with the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, an increasing number of commentators and activists have embraced the questionable claim that the threat posed by Islamism for the last few decades has been supplanted by a far-right menace, or even that the Islamist threat was heavily exaggerated from the start.
It is amid such casuistry that Islamists and their foreign state sponsors have spotted an opportunity to plead the case for their most violent progeny. Radicals are reframing dangerous jihadists convicted in the two decades following 9/11 as innocent victims of an overzealous, "structurally racist" and paranoid American security state. The greatest victim of the security state's cruelty, Islamists claim, is Aafia Siddiqui — otherwise known as Lady Al-Qaeda.
Siddiqui earned the moniker in 2004, after the FBI named her as one of seven senior al-Qaeda figures plotting attacks against the United States. FBI director Robert Mueller described her at the time as "an al Qaeda operative and facilitator."
Years later, Siddiqui was captured in Afghanistan. Upon her arrest, investigators found:
handwritten notes that referred to a "mass casualty attack" and that listed various locations in the United States, including Plum Island, the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, Wall Street, and the Brooklyn Bridge. Other notes in SIDDIQUI's possession referred to the construction of "dirty bombs," and discussed various ways to attack "enemies," including by destroying reconnaissance drones, using underwater bombs, and deploying gliders.
In the lead-up to her trial, Siddiqui demanded that Jews be excluded from the jury, claiming the entire prosecution had been orchestrated by unnamed "Jews." She was sentenced in 2010 to 86 years in prison, after the jury found that "Siddiqui attempted to murder Americans serving in Afghanistan, as well as their Afghan colleagues."
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Hopefully this gets resolved quickly with the hostages unharmed.
Originally Posted by Clusterfrack
