India’s nuclear plants on alert for possible terror attack
The Press Trust of India news agency reported that nuclear plants were put on alert Monday, Nov. 16 in the wake of the arrests in the United States of two suspects of complicity in the Mumbai attacks a year ago in which 171 were killed. David Headley and Tahawwur Hussain Rana, both of Chicago, are held to have maintained ties with the al Qaeda-linked Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) which was held responsible for those attacks.
Headley is believed to have carried out advance reconnaissance on the Mumbai targets ahead of the killing rampage in the city, including hotels and the Jewish Habad center. For the latter he is said to have masqueraded as a religious Jew.
This 49-year old suspect, a former Pakistan citizen who changed his name in America from Daud Gilani, may even have been the ringleader who left the scene after setting the operation up.
New Delhi asked the FBI to question him after finding that his advance survey included Indian states which have nuclear plants, where security has now been tightened. Headley also visited Pakistan and met LeT leaders.
He and Rana, a businessman with a grocery store on Chicago’s Devon Avenue, now face federal charges for an alleged terrorism conspiracy against a Danish newspaper which ran cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad in 2005. The cartoons aroused violent Muslim protests worldwide. The store is being investigated as a possible center for plotting terrorist attacks.