Former Philadelphia man charged in Mumbai attacks

Federal authorities in Chicago have now charged a former Philadelphia man with helping to plan the deadly November 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India.

David Coleman Headley, 49, who was brought to Philadelphia from Pakistan as a teenager, spent nearly two years scouting locations that figured in the terror attacks, including the Taj Mahal hotel, a cafe and train station.

Headley turned over the information to a Pakistani terror organization, Lashkar e Tayyiba, or The Army of the Good. Ten Lashkar-trained commandos landed in Mumbai last year and carried out three days of attacks with rifles, grenades and bombs, killing 170 people, including six Americans.

Authorities previously charged Headley with plotting to attack the Danish newspaper that angered Muslims by printing a cartoon of the prophet Muhammad.

Headley was born Daood Gilani, the son of a prominent Pakistani official and Serrill Headley of Bryn Mawr. Headley for years ran the Khyber Pass restaurant/pub in Old City.

He is cooperating with the ongoing investigation, federal authorities said.

Also today, a criminal complaint was unsealed in federal court in Chicago charging Abdur Rehman Hashim Syed (Abdur Rehman), a retired major in the Pakistani military, with conspiracy in connection with the Danish terror plot. Another Chicago man, Tahawwur Hussain Rana, was arrested in October on charges related to the Danish conspiracy.