http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...031805407.html
U.S. citizen David Coleman Headley admits role in Mumbai attacks
By Carrie Johnson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, March 19, 2010
An American man who scouted targets for the deadly 2008 Mumbai terrorist strike pleaded guilty Thursday to a dozen criminal charges and agreed to help prosecutors and intelligence analysts probing other likely targets overseas.
David Coleman Headley, 49, could spend the rest of his life in prison in exchange for prosecutors not pursuing the death penalty. National security experts consider Headley, who was arrested in a Chicago airport in October, one of the most dangerous and knowledgeable terrorist operatives they have apprehended on American soil....
The plea hearing in a Chicago federal courtroom offered new details on the Mumbai plot that killed more than 160 people, including six Americans. An earlier mission was aborted, court papers said, because of choppy waters in the city's harbor. Headley acknowledged attending training camps sponsored by the Pakistani extremist group Lashkar-i-Taiba and changing his name from Daood Gilani to avoid scrutiny in India. He made five trips to Mumbai, where he videotaped possible targets and used a global-positioning device to help the plotters, who went on to attack the Taj Mahal and Oberoi hotels, a Jewish cultural center and a train station in November 2008, prosecutors said.
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said the plea was a way to achieve justice and secure intelligence about terrorist activities, using "every tool available to defeat terrorism, both at home and abroad."
Headley also outlined his role in a plan to kill a cartoonist and other employees at a Danish newspaper that had published derogatory drawings of the prophet Muhammad. He allegedly met twice last year with a retired Pakistani military official, Abdur Rehman Hashim Syed, and Ilyas Kashmiri, who was in direct contact with senior al-Qaeda leaders. Both men are charged with Headley in the case, but neither is in U.S. custody.
Kashmiri allegedly told Headley that the attackers should behead the newspaper employees and throw their heads out the building windows to draw a response from Danish authorities, court papers said. The "elders," or al-Qaeda leaders, expressed interest in a rapid strike, according to the plea agreement.
Under the terms of the deal, Headley can secure a reduction in his prison sentence for ongoing cooperation with authorities and intelligence analysts in the United States and overseas. He will not be extradited to India, Denmark or Pakistan for the conduct described in the court papers, Justice Department officials said....