For the second day, Tahawuur Rana’s boarding school friend described the inner workings of the Lashkar e-Taiba terrorist group and how it started planning an attack on a Danish newspaper at the same time news was breaking about the 2008 attacks in Mumbai.
David Headley described in detail how he scouted terrorist targets in Mumbai like the Taj Hotel and the central train station; all the while keeping Rana in the loop.
Headley told jurors Rana was pleased by the attacks that killed more than 160 people, six of them Americans.
At a meeting in Chicago, Headley said he thought the attacks made his terrorist group "even with the Indians." To that, Rana reportedly replied, "they deserved it."
At the same meeting, Headley said, talk turned to planning a similar attack on the Copenhagen offices of a Danish newspaper.
Headley told jurors the “discussion on this, was long overdue.”
On the stand, Headley described what he called his Mickey Mouse plan, in retribution for a cartoon depicting the prophet Mohammed.
He said the plan had the approval of his Lashkar e-Taiba handlers: Sajid Mir and a retired Pakistani major who goes by the name of Pasha.
Headley said if Lashkar decided not to go through with the attack, Pasha had another man lined up who would go through with it. He said he and Pasha then traveled to Waziristan to meet with Ilyas Kashmiri, a man with ties to al Qaeda.
Kashmiri endorsed the plan, but it was foiled before it could be carried out.
| Full Coverage: Rana & Headley |
