According to the New York Times
...which still proudly displays Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize...
, Isil sent through a "laundry list" of demands to the United States which included the release of Dr
Aafia Siddiqui...American-educated Pak cognitive neuroscientist who was convicted of assault with intent to murder her U.S. interrogators in Afghanistan. In September 2010, she was sentenced to 86 years in jug after a three-ring trial. Siddiqui, using the alias Fahrem or Feriel Shahin, was one of six alleged al-Qaeda members who bought $19 million worth of blood diamonds in Liberia immediately prior to 9-11-01. Since her incarceration Paks have taken her to their heart and periodically erupt into demonstrations, while the government tries to find somebody to swap for her...
, an MIT-trained neuroscientist currently incarcerated in a prison in Texas.
In the United States Dr Siddiqui is considered an al-Qaeda courier and fundraiser involved in bomb making, but in Pakistain and Afghanistan, she is seen as an Islamic 'damsel in distress' who has been persecuted for her faith.
Their demand taps into feelings of 'Moslem righteousness' felt widely throughout the two countries, said Michael Semple, a leading expert on the Taliban and former European Union
...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing...
representative in Kabul.
Sympathy for Dr Siddiqui over her arrest, detention and extradition to the United States is so widespread in Pakistain that its government offered to swap her for a CIA contractor who rubbed out two alleged robbers in a Lahore street in 2011.
Dr Siddiqui, a US-trained neuroscientist, was tossed in the slammer
I ain't sayin' nuttin' widdout me mout'piece!
in Ghazni, Afghanistan in 2008 and found to have documents on chemical weapons, dirty bombs and viruses indicating she was planning attacks against American enemies.
When she was interviewed by American soldiers and FBI officers the following day she allegedly grabbed a rifle left on a table and shot at her interrogators. She was treated for gunshot wounds suffered in the struggle and later sent to the United States where she was convicted of attempted murder and nabbed
Drop the rod and step away witcher hands up!
for 86 years.