Taliban 'want to swap kidnapped British aid worker for Pakistani scientist jailed in the U.S.' 
 
 Unnamed woman is Scottish and in her 30 
 
 Militants claiming to have kidnapped a female British aid worker are believed to be demanding an exchange for the jailed Pakistani scientist Aafia Siddiqui. 
 
 The doctor, who was working for a charity, was travelling with three Afghan men in a two-vehicle convoy when they were ambushed yesterday morning. 
 
 At first the Taliban said it was not responsible for the adbuction, but a local commander named as Mohammed Osman, today claimed he had taken the group. 
 
 Osman told the Afghan Islamic Press: 'We are lucky that we abducted this British woman so soon after the ruthless ruling by an American court on Aafia Siddiqui. 
 
 'We will demand the release of Siddqui in exchange for her.' 
 
 Bleak: Kunar Province in Afghanistan where the British woman was taken 
 
 An FBI photo of Siddiqui. The neuroscientist, was jailed for 86 years last week by a New York court for the attempted murder of U.S. agents and soldiers who were trying to interrogate her in Afghanistan 
 
 Siddiqui, a 38-year-old mother-of-three neuroscientist, was jailed for 86 years last week by a New York court for the attempted murder of U.S. agents and soldiers who were trying to interrogate her in Afghanistan 
 
 The British embassy in Kabul would not discuss the report. 
 
 Meanwhile, an extensive search is being carried out for the unnamed Scottish woman who was led away on foot by her captors despite a firefight with local police. 
 
 The attack comes barely a month after British doctor Dr Karen Woo, 36, was shot dead in an ambush in which eight foreign aid workers and two Afghans were killed. 
 
 The motive for the latest kidnapping is not clear but insurgent involvement is likely as the Taliban usually take foreigners alive. 
 
 It is believed that the doctor worked for a U.S. charity, Development Alternatives International (DAI), which implements agricultural projects on behalf of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). 
 
 She is believed to be in her 30s and has spent several years working in Afghanistan. 
 
 The group were attacked as they travelled from Kunar province to Jalalabad, a rugged region close to the border with Pakistan which is a known Taliban stronghold. 
 
 The group were attacked as they travelled to Jalalabad, a rugged region close to the border with Pakistan which is a known Taliban stronghold 
 
 It is understood the woman and her travel companions – two drivers and a guard – were on their way to an opening ceremony for a canal rehabilitation project in the Narang district of Kunar. Police chief in Kunar, General Abdul Saboor Allahyar, said gunmen intercepted the woman’s convoy at around 11am. 
 
 A major search operation was under way with the assistance of tribal elders. 
 
 DAI spokesman Steven O’Connor confirmed the organisation was treating the incident as a ‘suspected abduction’ and resolving it was their ‘absolute first priority’. 
 
 The kidnap comes barely a month after British doctor Dr Karen Woo (pictured) was shot dead in an ambush 
 
 ‘The evidence does not point towards them getting lost,’ he said. 
 
 ‘The woman who appears to have been kidnapped is one of our veterans. She is a complete professional and has many years of experience.’ 
 
 The Foreign Office confirmed last night that a British national was missing in Afghanistan. 
 
 A spokesman said: ‘We are working with other international agencies to investigate these reports urgently.’ 
 
 A Taliban spokesman said he was unaware of the kidnapping. 
 
 Kunar is an area held by the Taliban where a number of foreign nationals have been kidnapped in recent years. 
 
 The Taliban claimed responsibility for Dr Woo’s death, saying she had been ‘preaching Christianity’ – a claim dismissed by family and friends who say she was not religious. 
 
 However there are suspicions that bandits may have been responsible, as the victims had been robbed when their bodies were found. 
 
 Two French journalists were seized last December to the north-east of Kabul, but were later released. 
 
 British general says Obama's withdrawal deadline is 'overstated' 
 
 A top NATO commander in Afghanistan said today there should be no rush to withdraw alliance forces in 2011 because once they are gone, it would be much harder to send them back if necessary. 
 
 
 
 Lieutenant-General Nick Parker, second-in-command of the International Security Assistance Force behind U.S. General David Petraeus, also said the significance of a July 2011 U.S. withdrawal date had been overemphasised. 
 
 
 
 Lieutenant-General Nick Parker says the withdrawal of NATO forces from Afghanistan should not be rushed 
 
 
 
 'What we must not do is pull back and go blind, because it then becomes extremely difficult to re-intervene, if you need to,' Parker told reporters in London through a satellite link from Afghanistan. 
 
 
 
 'What we've got to do is to thin back and then reinvest some of that dividend into other areas so there is a sense of continuing commitment. It's not a sort of rush for the exit,' he added. 
 
 
 
 Almost 150,000 foreign troops, mostly American, are fighting a now nine-year NATO-led war against Taliban insurgents. 
 
 
 
 This year has been the deadliest for foreign forces, and pressure in participating countries has mounted for troops to be withdrawn. 
 
 
 
 'It is entirely reasonable for there to be some drawdown of some sort, although I suggest that all the indicators I've heard is that this is not as significant as some people choose to make it out to be,' Parker said. 
 
 
 
 'I suspect ... some domestic politics in certain countries where it's being overstated,' he later added. 
 
 
 
 Parker said he had no knowledge of the scale of a possible U.S. drawdown next year, but said media reports had cited about 2,000, a figure he said was 'not a subject of strategic significance.' 
 
 
 
 For British troops, Parker said he was confident that by July, more Afghan forces would be sufficiently capable to take over on the front line and for more British troops to act as a 'reactive' enabling force or be redeployed where needed. 
 
 
 
 He declined to comment on the prospect of withdrawal. 
 
 
 
 'Is this July 2011 deadline an over-optimistic target to have capable Afghan forces taking over the front line from the coalition? This is a personal assessment; I don't think it is,' he added. ||||| Sponsored Links 
 
 (Sept. 24) -- Pakistan's prime minister called a female scientist convicted of opening fire on U.S. interrogators in Afghanistan a "daughter of the nation" today and vowed to bring the so-called " Lady al-Qaida " back home to Pakistan.Many Pakistanis are angry at their government for failing to intervene in the case of Aafia Siddiqui, a 38-year-old Pakistani neuroscientist and mother of three who was sentenced Thursday to 86 years in a U.S. federal prison. Demonstrations erupted after mosque prayers today in at least four Pakistani cities. Prime Minister Yousef Reza Gilani sought to tap into that anger in a speech to Parliament, which unanimously adopted a resolution calling for Siddiqui's repatriation."We all are united, and we want the daughter of the nation to come back to Pakistan," Gilani said, according to Dawn News . "I fought for her, my lawyer fought for her and now I will take up this matter on a political level."While he spoke, dozens of protesters took to the streets of the northwestern city of Peshawar, burning tires and shouting slogans against Gilani as well as "Down with America!" Some threw their shoes at a portrait of President Barack Obama, Dawn also reported Gilani had authorized the Pakistani government to pay $2 million for Siddiqui's U.S. defense team and personally appealed to Washington for her release, saying such a move would "improve the U.S. image in Pakistan."Interior Minister Rehman Malik phoned Siddiqui's family to express sympathy after her sentencing and said the government would try its best to win her freedom, the Pakistani newspaper The Nation reported . Siddiqui's sister also met with Gilani today, the South Asian News Agency reported Siddiqui is believed to have lived in the U.S. from 1991 to 2002 and holds neuroscience degrees from Brandeis University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. U.S. authorities say she returned to Pakistan after marrying an al-Qaida operative related to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind behind the Sept. 11 attacks.She was arrested in Afghanistan after police there found explosives and notes referring to a "mass casualty attack" with lists of New York landmarks like the Statue of Liberty, Wall Street and the Brooklyn Bridge. Siddiqui claims she was held incommunicado in Afghanistan for five years.In 2008, she grabbed a soldier's rifle and opened fire on FBI agents in Afghanistan as they tried to interrogate her. She exclaimed "her intent and desire to kill Americans" during the shooting, according to her indictment. Her lawyers claimed it was a spontaneous "freakout" that had more to do with mental illness than al-Qaida, The Guardian reported . The FBI agents survived.The incident put Siddiqui near the top of the FBI's list of most wanted terrorists. A jury in New York convicted her this past February and sentenced her Thursday to 86 years behind bars.Many Pakistanis are convinced Siddiqui is innocent and believe U.S. agents kidnapped and tortured her for years. Local media have speculated about why American authorities believed she was guilty and acknowledged that Siddiqui might have made self-incriminating statements in court."Aafia Siddiqui hurt her case in court by publicly speaking against Jews and America and also by giving evidence that proved she had learnt how to use guns while studying in Boston," reported the Associated Press of Pakistan , a Pakistani news agency. ||||| Sponsored Links 
 
 (Sept. 23) -- The judge who sentenced "Lady al-Qaida" Aafia Siddiqui to 86 years in prison referred to her as an " enigma ."U.S. District Court Judge Richard Berman sentenced the 38-year-old mother of three on Thursday for her conviction for trying to kill American officers and FBI agents in Afghanistan a day after she was arrested by Afghan police outside a mosque in Ghazni on suspicion she was a suicide bomber.Siddiqui has a degree in biology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Ph.D. in neuroscience from Brandeis University. In 2004, Attorney General John Ashcroft put her on his "Deadly Seven" list of most wanted terrorists. But by then, she had already disappeared.Below is a look at the five strangest mysteries surrounding her.She disappeared on March 30, 2003, after getting into a cab with her three children in Karachi, Pakistan , and didn't surface until July 17, 2008, when she was arrested in Afghanistan with her 11-year-old son, Ahmed. After her arrest, she allegedly told U.S. officials that she had been on her way to the airport to visit an uncle in Islamabad when she was kidnapped by American intelligence , drugged and taken to a secret prison where she was tortured. Her mother told the BBC that two days after Siddiqui dropped out of sight, a man in a motorcycle helmet showed up at her house and told her to keep quiet if she ever wanted to see her daughter and grandchildren again.The CIA denies that it ever arrested Siddiqui. To make matters more confusing, she has also claimed variously that she was kidnapped by Pakistani intelligence and that she was working as an agent for Pakistani intelligence, according to Time Prisoners at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan claimed there was a woman detained there whose screams and sobs would keep them awake at night. She was nicknamed the " Grey Lady of Bagram " by British journalist and activist Yvonne Ridley. The Bagram inmates said she was referred to as " Prisoner 650 ." They reportedly went on a hunger strike in 2005 to protest her treatment.After Siddiqui graduated from MIT in 1995, her parents arranged for her to marry Muhammad Amjad Khan, a Pakistani anesthesiologist who worked in Boston. Khan was questioned by the FBI after 9/11 because he had purchased night-vision goggles, military manuals and body armor. He explained that they were for big-game hunting in Pakistan, according to Der Spiegel. The couple moved back to Pakistan soon afterward, and in 2002 they divorced while Siddiqui was pregnant with their third child.When she was arrested in 2008, she told FBI investigators that she had remarried Ammar al-Baluchi, also known as Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, one of the five accused 9/11 plotters and the nephew of alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Al-Baluchi was arrested in Pakistan in 2003, one month after he had married Siddiqui, according to a psychologist working for her defense lawyers. He is being held at Guantanamo. Siddiqui's family denies that they are married, according to the BBC In 2004, a United Nations report said that Siddiqui had traveled to Liberia in July 2001 to purchase blood diamonds worth $19 million for al-Qaida, though the information was never verified, according to Der Spiegel.A key question before and during Siddiqui's trial in New York was whether she was mentally sound. Berman decided she was fit to stand trial , though her attorneys had tried to convince him otherwise. Psychological experts on both sides testified with conflicting views of her mental stability, with some saying she was faking her mental illness.Today, when her lawyers asked for leniency from Berman, claiming their client suffers from schizophrenia, Siddiqui threw her hands in the air and said, "I do not have any mental illness," according to The Wall Street Journal Her trial this winter was punctuated with similar outbursts and strange exclamations, some of which resulted in her removal. She told the judge in January that she did not want any Jewish jurors and expected them to be biologically tested to ensure a fair trial.At her hearing Thursday, Siddiqui said she had evidence that Israel was behind the Sept. 11 attacks. But she also had a message of peace, telling the audience not to get angry and to "forgive Judge Berman." She said she didn't want "any bloodshed," only "to make peace and end the wars" and that she had been treated well while in the American prison. ||||| (Sept. 23) -- A federal judge in New York sentenced Pakistani scientist Aafia Siddiqui to 86 years in prison today for the attempted murder of U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan In February, a jury convicted the 38-year-old woman on seven counts of attempted murder, for grabbing a soldier's assault rifle and opening fire on FBI agents as they tried to interrogate her. According to the indictment, Siddiqui "exclaimed her desire and intent to kill Americans" during the shooting.U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in a statement today that Siddiqui will face "the stiff consequences of her violent actions." Siddiqui though, says she is innocent.Afghan police arrested Siddiqui after they found bomb-making materials, notes referring to a "mass casualty attack" and a list of landmarks in New York that included the Statue of Liberty, Wall Street and the Brooklyn Bridge. She had also listed underwater bombs as a way to attack "enemies."Siddiqui, who lived in the United States from 1991 to 2002, was at least partly American-trained and received degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Brandeis University in neuroscience, The Wall Street Journal reported today. Prosecutors said she received training in firearms during her time in Boston.In court today, Siddiqui appealed to her supporters to forgive her enemies. "Forgive everybody in my case," she said, according to the New York Daily News . "And also forgive Judge Berman."In Pakistan , though, where many say Siddiqui has been wrongly accused, hundreds took to the streets of Karachi today to protest the United States and call for her release.At her sentencing, Siddiqui said she didn't want any violence to ensue. "Tell the Muslims, please don't get emotional," she said, according to The Associated Press . "I do not want any violence in my name."Her defense lawyers had argued that she was mentally ill, but Siddiqui herself disputed these claims.
– The Taliban today admitted to kidnapping a female Scottish aid worker in Afghanistan, and offered to trade her for the release of Aafia Siddiqui, the Pakistani ex-MIT student sentenced to 86 years in prison last week for trying to kill FBI officers. Siddiqui’s sentence set off a wave of protests in Pakistan, with the prime minister calling her a “daughter of the nation” and vowing to bring her home, according to Aol News. “We are lucky that we abducted this British woman so soon after the ruthless ruling by an American court on Aafia Siddiqui,” a Taliban commander told the Afghan Islamic Press, according to the Daily Mail. “We will demand the release of Siddiqui in exchange for her.” The Scottish woman was abducted yesterday morning when gunmen intercepted her convoy. Local tribal elders are helping to organize a large search operation. For more on the mysteries surrounding Siddiqui, click here.