Justice Department officials say Siddiqui was detained in Afghanistan on July 17 while acting suspiciously outside a provincial governor's home. She was with a boy who was later identified as her 11-year-old son Ahmed.
A day later, Siddiqui was taken to a police holding area, where she grabbed an unsecured military rifle and opened fire on a small group of U.S. soldiers, interpreters and FBI agents who had come to question her, according to the indictment and an earlier criminal complaint.
One of the soldiers returned fire and injured Siddiqui, who was treated and later flown from Afghanistan to New York to face criminal charges.
Last month, looking gaunt and frail, she appeared in court and was ordered held without bail on charges of attempted murder of U.S. officers and employees and related assault charges. Prosecutors also alleged that before opening fire, Siddiqui yelled "Allahu akbar!" (God is great) and stated her intent to kill Americans.
The indictment made public Tuesday contained similar charges, and authorities said Siddiqui faced life in prison if convicted on all charges. She is scheduled to be arraigned in federal court Thursday.
On Tuesday, a lawyer for Siddiqui's family scoffed at the indictment's claims that a 90-pound woman tried to take on and kill U.S. authorities, or that she was involved in a terrorist plot.
"I think it's interesting that they make all these allegations about the dirty bombs and other items she supposedly had, but they haven't charged her with anything relating to terrorism," Elaine Whitfield Sharp said. "I would urge people to consider her as innocent unless the government proves otherwise."
Sharp said that in recent conversations with her client, Siddiqui said she had been held incommunicado and in custody over the last five years, not working with Al Qaeda.
"She is a mother of three who has been through several years of detention, whose interrogators were Americans, who endured treatment fairly characterized as horrendous," Sharp said.
U.S. law enforcement and intelligence officials have denied that Siddiqui was in U.S. custody, but they have said little about the case or about what they might know of Siddiqui's whereabouts over the last five years.
Family members said she got into a taxi in Karachi, Pakistan, with her three young children in March 2003, and that they had not seen or heard from her since.
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josh.meyer@latimes.com
