The MIT-educated terrorist dubbed al Qaeda’s “Mata Hari” was captured with a list of likely New York targets – including the Statue of Liberty, Times Square, the subways and Plum Island Disease Center – as well as damning e-mails between sleeper cells, authorities say.
The information found stuffed in the purse of brainy mom-of-three Aafia Siddiqui now amounts to a “treasure trove” of potential leads for investigators, a well-placed government source told The Post last night.
“She’s really warped, but she’s the real deal,” the source said, noting that Siddiqui’s capture was major because she is among the inner circle of al Qaeda’s top echelon.
She’s “brilliant [but] out of her mind. Her hatred for the US is visceral. She drank the Kool-Aid. She’s a Pakistani religious zealot who hates America.”
When nabbed outside a governor’s mansion in Afghanistan last month, Siddiqui, 36, also had information indicating a possible attack on the animal-disease research site on Plum Island off Long Island, sources told ABC News. The government compound deals with pathogens including those involved in foot-and-mouth disease and swine fever.
She also was carrying detailed information on radioactive, biological and chemical weapons, officials have said.
Samples of the suspect’s hair, nails and saliva are now being analyzed to see if she had been exposed to any of the agents that would be used in making such weapons.
A computer-storage thumb drive also found on the neuroscientist was a particularly rare find. It included the e-mails between “what she described as ‘units’ and what we would call ‘cells,’ ” a source told ABC.
“This is a major haul,” said former CIA agent John Kiriakou told the network.
“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.”
Siddiqui – who graduated from MIT with a biology degree and then from Brandeis University with a doctorate – appeared on authorities’ radar shortly after 9/11.
That’s when an admitted 9/11 mastermind, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, named her as a possible al Qaeda operative in Boston.
Siddiqui has been married to Mohammed’s nephew.
But she went underground before US officials could nab her.
During her interrogation in Afghanistan, she grabbed a gun that had been left unattended and allegedly tried to shoot a group of US officials.
She was brought to Manhattan to face federal charges. On Monday, she was back in court to gripe that she wasn’t getting proper medical treatment.
Additional reportingby Kate Sheehy