Global Security Newswire

Federal prosecutors yesterday obtained an indictment against an alleged al-Qaeda member said to have been found carrying instructions on assembling chemical and biological weapons and radiological "dirty bombs," ABC News reported (see GSN, Aug. 14).

According to the indictment, the notes held by 36-year-old Aafia Siddiqui when she was arrested July 17 in Afghanistan included estimated numbers of people each weapon could kill and potential means of attack that included "destroying reconnaissance drones, using underwater bombs and using gliders."

Siddiqui was also allegedly carrying a list of possible New York targets and roughly 1 liter of cyanide, the indictment states.  U.S. analysts have been examining samples of her hair, saliva and fingernail clippings to determine whether she has been in the presence of WMD agents.

Siddiqui has been charged with the attempted murder of U.S. interrogators who tried to speak with her following her capture in Afghanistan.

"Her education troubled us," CIA official John Kiriakou said of Siddiqui, who attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and received a neuroscience doctorate at Brandeis University. 

"We know that she's extremely bright.  She's radicalized.  We knew that she had been planning, or at least involved in the planning, of a wide variety of different operations, whether they involved weapons of mass destruction or research into chemical or biological weapons, whether it was a possible attempt on the life of the president," he said.  "We knew that she was involved with a great deal and we had to bring her into custody.

"She is a very dangerous person, no doubt about it," a high-level U.S. counterterrorism official added (Esposito/Ross, ABC News, Sept. 2).