Feature: First woman al Qaida suspect

WASHINGTON, March 29 (UPI) -- The first woman accused of links with the al-Qaida terrorist network has a doctorate in neurological science and is a mother of three, FBI officials said.

The FBI recently issued a worldwide search notice for Aafia Siddiqui, the first woman the federal investigations agency has accused of actively helping Osama bin Laden's terrorist network. Bin Laden is the Saudi exile suspected of being the driving force behind the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Siddiqui, 31, lived in Boston before she disappeared, the FBI says. She holds a Ph.D. in neurological science and has studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Brandeis University, and other institutions.

She was born on March 2, 1972, in Pakistan. Although her whereabouts are unknown, the FBI believes she is currently in Pakistan.

The agency says she's a "fixer" who moves money to provide logistical support for terrorist activities. She is also tied to radicals in Pakistan, it added.

FBI officials say that being a woman helps Siddiqui, as few would suspect a Western-educated woman with children as a terrorist. Siddiqui's three children are ages nine months through six years.

"The FBI would like to locate and question this individual," according to an FBI search notice.

Specifically, Siddiqui may have been providing logistical support to Adnan El Shukrijumah, a 27-year-old Saudi man sought by the agency on suspicion of plotting terrorist attacks in the United States, agents say. She may also have accompanied El Shukrijumah in his travels inside the United States.

What have been described as credible reports placed her in Gaithersburg, a Maryland suburban town near Washington, in December or January.

They say that she wears both traditional Pakistani and Western clothes and may be traveling with or without her three young children. The FBI has issued two pictures of Siddiqui along with the search notice, with and without hijab, the traditional veil that Muslim women may wear.