(IPT) Most Americans may not have heard of Aafia Siddiqui before Saturday, when a gunman entered Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas, outside Dallas, and took the rabbi and three congregants hostage. Thankfully, the standoff ended without any hostage being harmed.
But for many American Islamist groups, Siddiqui is a martyr, “another victim of the U.S. war of terror.”
In rallies and seminars throughout the past year, groups including the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) and the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) Council for Social Justice demanded that Siddiqui be freed.
She was sentenced to 86 years in prison after her 2010 conviction for attempting to kill U.S. personnel in Afghanistan who were preparing to interrogate her. She was able to grab an M4 rifle and, according to her indictment, open fire. Her shots missed and she was wounded by return fire.
