Determined to spark an armed conflict between India and Pakistan, Lashkar-e-Toiba plotted a series of strikes on Jewish prayer halls in no less than five Indian cities, a plan which if it had succeeded, would have severely tested India's restraint over going to war.

While Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had firmly ruled out use of armed force by way of retaliation after the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, the LeT plot involving David Coleman Headley has revealed the Pakistani-American jihadi had recced five targets, including a little known Chabad House in Delhi's Paharganj area.

The targets were tucked away in nooks and bylanes very much like the Chabad House at Nariman Point in Mumbai which two members of the Lashkar squad attacked. He was planning synchronized terror strikes at Jewish houses in five cities including Pushkar, Goa, Pune and Mumbai. Apart from the National Defence College located in the Capital, Headley went to Pushkar, famous for its annual fair, and stayed for three days in a room opposite a Jewish prayer house.

The investigations reveal Headley followed the same subterfuge as he did when he visited the Mumbai Chabad house, posing to be a Jew. It is remarkable that despite his close involvement in the Mumbai terror plot, he still chose to visit India with impunity and staked out Jewish establishments as he had in Denmark where his target was the Danish newspaper Jyllands Posten.

The planning again underlines the determination of Lashkar to carry out strikes in India which are intended to grab international attention and snap the fragile India-Pakistan engagement. The PM had ruled out options like air strikes on terror camps in PoK despite the former Air Force chief favouring such a course of action. But another big strike will bring the government under intense political pressure.

Headley's teaming up with Tahawwur Rana, a Pakistani of Canadian citizenship, his frequent interaction with Lashkar handlers and a "retired" Pakistani army major point to the freedom with which LeT operates in Pakistan even after its so-called arrest of some important figures charged with planning 26/11.

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has found that Headley did recce of the Chabad House in delhi which is barely 300 metres from the two hotels - De Holiday Inn and Anand - where he stayed from March 7 to March 10 before leaving for Pushkar to scout another Jewish center. The Chabad House in Paharganj is located in narrow lanes and is frequented generally by backpackers from Israel while either going to Dharamshala in Himachal Pradesh or to western parts of the country.

Sources in the agency said Headley, who had then been aleady under surveillance of US agencies, also visited the house and posed as Jew while carrying out his reconnaissance mission for terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). The NIA has recorded statement of a few residents who verified Headley's visit to the Jewish center, they added. The new findings also solved the puzzle as to why Headley had chosen to stay in a budget hotel in Paharganj instead of staying in any posh hotels like he did during his Mumbai stay. It now appears that he used to stay in the area where he was supposed to carry out his mission.

Investigators, therefore, believe that his visit to Paharganj was under a design. It could certainly be easier for him to recce the place which would be a potential targets of the LeT jihadis in due course. As a part of the same design, Headley subsequently travelled to Pushkar in the outskirts of Ajmer in Rajasthan where he insisted on a room opposite a Jewish prayer centre claiming he was a Jew and wanted "holy sight".

The hotel staff, in their statements to the NIA, said that 49-year-old Headley had insisted on the room view which was right opposite to the prayer hall of the Jew centre in Pushkar. After staying there for three days, Headley moved to Goa where he stayed at a guest house located in Anjuna village along the coast of Arabian sea before proceeding towards Pune where he visited the area around Koregaon Park.

Though initially it was believed that he wanted to target foreigners at Osho Ashram, it was found later that he had scouted the area for targeting the Jewish prayer centre in the area. Headley then left for Mumbai where he went to the Cuffe Prade area and scouted for Israel Airways office before flying to Pakistan from the Chatrapati Shivaji airport. Today Headley pleaded not guilty before a court where he was produced, two days after being charged with helping plan the Mumbai terror attacks. (ANI)

Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operative David Coleman Healdey, aka Dawood Gilani has been slapped with charges by US law enforcement authorities for his involvement in the Mumbai terror attacks on the 26th of November, 2008.

The 49-year-old Gilani is currently in FBI custody, he was nabbed on October 3rd by the Federal Bureau of Investogation while he was trying to board a flight to Pakistan. Headley was indeed the missing link of the 26/11 attacks, he had provided the Lashkar members in Pakistan photographs and videos of various places in India that were targeted for bombings, including the Taj. Headley gave oral descriptions of the targeted places to the terrorists and also discussed landing sites for the LeT team who would arrive by sea in Mumbai. He had set up an immigration services office in India as cover for his surveillance activities. Headley faces life penalty or death as maximum punishment.

An official release from the US Attorney's office states, "New federal charges filed today allege that a Chicago man (Headley), who was arrested in October for planning terrorist attacks against a Danish newspaper and two of its employees, also conducted extensive surveillance of targets in Mumbai for more than two years preceding the November 2008 terrorist attack on India's largest city that killed approximately 170 people, including six Americans, and injured hundreds more."

Abdur Rehman Hashim Syed, a retired major in the Pakistani army, and also the handler of the Lashkar terrorists who attacked Mumbai also faces a criminal complaint in a federal court. He has been charged with conspiracy in planning to attack the Danish newspaper and its employees.

"Headley, 49, was charged in a 12-count criminal information with six counts of conspiracy to bomb public places in India, to murder and maim persons in India and Denmark, to provide material support to foreign terrorist plots, and to provide material support to Lashkar (e-Taiba LeT), and six counts of aiding and abetting the murder of US citizens in India," the release said.

Headley/Gilani has confessed to his involvement in numerous terror plots in India and is cooperating in the investigation of his Danish plans as well. Headley is charged with conspiring with LeT members and others 'in planning and executing the attacks in both Denmark and India.' Headley's Canadian-Pakistani accomplice Tahawwur Hussain Rana has been accused of his involvement in a Danish terrorism plot. Headley and Rana face Patrick J. Fitzgerald, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, and Robert D. Grant, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), along with the US Attorney's Office for the Central District of California and the FBI's offices in Los Angeles and Washington.

According to the charges, "after learning from members of Lashkar in late 2005 that he would be traveling to India to perform surveillance for Lashkar, Headley changed his name from Daood Gilani on Feb 15, 2006, in Philadelphia, in order to present himself in India as an American who was neither Muslim nor Pakistani. He later made five extended trips to Mumbai - in September 2006, February and September 2007, and April and July 2008 - each time taking pictures and making videotapes of various targets, including those attacked in November 2008."

"After being tasked in late 2005 with gathering surveillance in Mumbai and changing his name in early 2006, the charges allege that Headley traveled to Chicago in June 2006 and advised a person identified in the charges as Individual A of his assignment. Headley obtained Individual A's approval to open an office of First World Immigration Services in Mumbai in 2006 as cover for his surveillance activities, the charges allege. Headley allegedly misrepresented his birth name, father's true name and the purpose of his travel in his visa application," the release said.

"After each trip that Headley took to India between September 2006 and July 2008, he allegedly returned to Pakistan, met with other co-conspirators and provided them with photographs, videos and oral descriptions of various locations. In March 2008, Headley and his co-conspirators discussed potential landing sites for a team of attackers who would arrive by sea in Mumbai, and he was instructed to take boat trips in and around the Mumbai harbor and take surveillance video, which he did during his visit to India starting in April 2008," the charges allege.

Headley also surveyed many other locations in India, including the National Defense College in Delhi. All of the other surveyed places were to be targeted for attacks following 26/11. "The two-count complaint unsealed against Abdur Rehman, which was filed on Oct. 20, 2009, charges him with conspiracy to murder and maim persons in a foreign country, and providing material support to that foreign terrorism conspiracy," the release said. "This investigation remains active and ongoing. The team of prosecutors and agents will continue to seek charges against the other persons responsible for these attacks. I continue to express my deep appreciation to the FBI agents and other members of the Joint Terrorism Task Force for their extremely hard work on this matter," Fitzgerald said.

"This case serves as a reminder that the terrorist threat is global in nature and requires constant vigilance at home and abroad," said David Kris, Assistant Attorney General for National Security. "We continue to share leads developed in this investigation with our foreign and domestic law enforcement partners as we work together on this important matter."

FBI Director Robert S. Mueller, III, said: "This case illustrates the importance of continued global cooperation to combat terrorism around the world. The FBI continues to strengthen relationships and to foster collaboration with our international partners to best ensure our collective ability to identify and disrupt international terror networks."