British MI5 Tip-Off Led to Headley, Rana's Arrest in US

A timely tip-off from British counter-intelligence agency MI5 to their counterparts in the US led to the eventual arrest of David Coleman Headley and Tahawwur Rana in 2009—the childhood friends turned terrorists have been accused of planning the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, Indian counter-terror officials familiar with the case told HT.

- Abhishek Sharan

MUMBAI:

Rana, 64, was extradited to India from the US last week.

In July 2009, MI5 officials shared intelligence with the US regarding Pakistan-origin US citizen Headley's suspicious terror-scouting activities, the officials said. Headley was eventually arrested three months later in Chicago, US, on October 3, 2009, and Rana, 15 days after that.

It was during Headley's trip to Derby, United Kingdom (UK), in July 2009, that his terror activities related to the planned attack at a newspaper's premises in Denmark came to be known to the sleuths of MI5.

During this trip, Headley had allegedly met two purported contacts to procure their collaboration to carry out a terror attack at Danish newspaper Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten's offices in Copenhagen and Arhus, to target its editor, a cartoonist and other staffers.

The attack was allegedly being planned in retaliation against the publication of certain cartoons in 2005, which he and his handlers in the two terror outfits, Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Harkat-ul-Jihad Islami (HuJI), deemed as anti-Islamic. One of the two contacts Headley had met in Derby was allegedly an MI5 asset and on learning about the brewing terror conspiracy, the British intelligence officials alerted their US counterparts, a counter-terror official told HT on condition of anonymity.