Washington, Nov 20 (IANS) Suspected Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operative David Coleman Headley's father was a prominent Pakistani diplomat while his mother belonged to Philadelphia. Born Daood Gilani, Headley changed his name in 2006 taking on the surname of his mother Serrill Headley, says a media report.

Serrill Headley, who grew up in Bryn Mawr, split with her husband, and lost custody of her children in Pakistani courts. After 10 years in Pakistan, Serrill Headley moved to Philadelphia, bought a 100-year-old tavern in 1973, and turned it into a bustling nightspot, writes The Philadelphia Inquirer.

She founded the Khyber Pass pub/restaurant at 56 S. Second St.

In an interview in 1974, she said: "In Pakistan, men own the children. There are no rights for women,"

After two earlier attempts to get her son out of Pakistan failed, she succeeded in 1977.

Headley was 16 when he, then named Daood Gilani, was taken out of Pakistan where he attended a military school. Family members in published reports have described his striking eyes - one blue and one brownish-green.

In Philadelphia, however, he suffered from culture shock. Raised as a Muslim, he was having trouble adjusting to the idea that his mother ran a bar, the Inquirer said.

"He has never been alone with, much less had a date with, a girl, except the servant girls of his household," an Inquirer column said in 1974.

At the time, the Khyber was a slice of exotica on the Philadelphia bar scene, with Pakistani wedding tents and 180 brands of beer.

Eventually, Serrill Headley turned it over to her son.

"His mother owned it and gave it to him around 1985," said Stephen Simons, current owner of the bar, now called the Khyber. "He ran it for about a year and ran it into the ground," Simons said. Simons' brother bought the bar in 1988.

David Headley studied accounting, possibly at a community college in the Philadelphia region. With his mother, he operated a video store, FliksVideo, in Center City.

Serrill Headley died in 2008. Her second husband, Dick Pothier, was an Inquirer reporter; he died in 1995.

In 1997, Headley, under his birth name of Gilani, was convicted on federal charges in Brooklyn of smuggling heroin into the country. He was sentenced to 15 months in prison.

He changed his name to Headley in 2006. In August, in an interview with Customs agents, he said he changed his name to raise less suspicion when he travelled, according to the Inquirer.

Headley had been living in the north side of Chicago, authorities said, in an apartment under the name of a dead man. Although he has claimed to be a consultant in an immigration business, federal agents who have had him under surveillance found no evidence that was true.

They said he travelled extensively since 2006, including trips to Pakistan, India, and Denmark. Sometimes he travelled to Pakistan for months at a time.

The FBI was listening in as Headley and another man arrested in the case, Tahawwur Rana, 48, also of Chicago, discussed attacking the National Defence College in India, the charges say.

Today, Headley sits in a federal prison in Chicago, charged by the FBI with planning terrorist attacks overseas - including an alleged plot to target the Danish newspaper that in 2005 angered Muslims with a cartoon of the prophet Muhammad.

Federal agents arrested Headley, 49, last month at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago as he prepared to board a plane to Philadelphia, where he still has relatives. Philadelphia was a stopover on a trip to Pakistan, according to the criminal affidavit.

In his luggage, he had a copy of the Danish newspaper's front page and a memory stick that included videos of the paper's front entrance.

After his arrest, he admitted to the FBI that he was surveilling the paper and Danish troops stationed nearby in preparation for an attack, the criminal affidavit states.

Headley was being held without bail on charges of conspiracy and providing material support to terrorists, pending a hearing.

Unlike some other federal terrorism cases, where the alleged plotters were really only talking to undercover agents, the case against Headley alleges that he was in contact with known leaders of terrorist groups in Pakistan.

According to the charging documents, federal authorities tracked his meetings, e-mail, and phone conversations.

He admitted to the FBI that he trained with Lashkar-e-Taiba, a terrorist group, and that he was working with Ilyas Kashmiri, operations leader of another Pakistani terrorist organisation.

Indian authorities also suspect Headley, a US citizen, may have scouted targets in Mumbai before the attacks last year that killed 165 people, according to a report in the Washington Post.

The pending federal case is centred on an alleged plot against the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, which angered Muslims around the world by publishing a cartoon in 2005 of the prophet Muhammad with a bomb in his turban.

In phone calls, Headley and the other conspirators called it the "Mickey Mouse project" or the "northern project."

In September, news reports said Kashmiri was killed in a drone attack. Headley was recorded talking in coded language about Kashmiri's death, saying the "doctor" may have "gotten married" - code for killed - and how that might affect "investments," code for violent attacks, according to the federal charges.

"It has made me very sad," Headley said, as FBI agents listened.

But the reports were wrong. Kashmiri was not killed. Headley rejoiced

"Buddy, if this is true, then I will say 100 prayers, 100 prayers," Headley said.

Pakistan's former military officer 'co-conspirator' of Headley: NYT

The arrests of David Coleman Headley and his associate Tawwahur Hussain Rana - the two Chicago men accused of planning a new attack in India - have widened into a global terrorism inquiry that has led to arrests in Pakistan and implicated a former Pakistani military officer as a co-conspirator, according to the New York Times citing unnamed officials.

In India, where the two men are said to have wanted to attack the country's National Defence College, investigators are trying to determine whether the two men played a role in attacks a year ago in Mumbai in which 166 people were killed.

"The case is one of the first criminal cases in which the federal authorities seem to have directly linked terrorism suspects in the US to a former Pakistani military officer, though they have long suspected connections between extremists and many members of the Pakistani military," the New York Times reported.

Intelligence officials believe that some Pakistani military and intelligence officials even encourage terrorists to attack what they see as Pakistan's enemies, including targets in India.

Headley, 49, and Rana, 48, were accused in complaints unsealed Oct 27 of plotting an attack on a newspaper in Copenhagen that published cartoons on Prophet Mohammed in 2005 that offended many Muslims.

The complaints suggested that Headley - who was accused of the most serious charges, attempting to murder and maim in a foreign country - had cooperated with the authorities after his arrest Oct 3 as he boarded a plane on the first leg of a trip to Pakistan.

The officials, who asked not to be identified because they were discussing a continuing inquiry, now say that the investigation has widened further in part because of the wealth of information supplied by Headley.

John Theis, a lawyer for Headley, and Patrick W. Blegen, a lawyer for Rana, would not comment on who was suspected of being the co-conspirator or other matters in the case.

Randall Samborn, a spokesman for Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the United States attorney in Chicago, also declined to comment. Headley and Rana are in custody pending further proceedings. Each is scheduled to appear at a detention hearing in early December.

A spokesman for the Pakistani embassy here also declined to comment, citing the continuing inquiry.

Headley, who changed his name from Daood Gilani in 2006, is a US citizen who lived in Pakistan but recently was mainly a resident of Chicago. Rana is a Canadian citizen who has lived legally in Chicago, where he operated a travel agency and other businesses.

The two are graduates of a military academy in the town of Hasan Abdal in Pakistan, and they maintained e-mail contact with other former students, including officers in Pakistan's military. They belonged to a group of the school's graduates who referred to themselves as the "abdalians" in Internet postings, according to government affidavits.

American military and intelligence officials said the case reflected a new and evolving pattern of individual militants with different backgrounds and experience, rather than terrorist groups, teaming up to plot and carry out attacks.

Evidence building of Headley and Rana's links to 26/11

New Delhi/Mumbai, Nov 19 (IANS)Investigators probing David Coleman Headley's links in India said they were close to nailing the connection between American terror suspect and his Canadian accomplice Tahawwur Hussain Rana with the larger module that had planned and executed the 26/11 strikes.

Top sources in the National Investigation Agency (NIA) that has taken over the case said it had established that Headley and Rana were in touch with the same Pakistan-based handlers who gave directions to the 10 terrorists who attacked Mumbai. 

Sleuths are now examining how the duo had corresponded with Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) masterminds Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi and Zarar Shah, who are currently in Pakistani custody, and also probing if there was another module at all involved in the Mumbai attacks. 

"We are trying to procure the records and transcript of the full conversation that took place between them to establish links," a senior investigating official told IANS on condition of anonymity. 

Indian investigators have asked the FBI for voice samples of Headley and Rana and the people the duo spoke with on phone so that they can be compared with the samples available in India after 26/11. 

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) that is expected to come to India soon is reportedly bringing the voice samples. 

Sources also pointed out that both suspects, now in US custody for planning terror attacks in India and Denmark, used satellite phone during their visits to Mumbai and Kochi last year before 26/11. 

The NIA is trying to establish if Headley and Rana brought the phones with them to the two cities or obtained them from local aides. 

With the duo's role in the terror strikes becoming clearer with every passing day, investigators are also stumbling on other bits and pieces of information that may be connected with their choosing other potential targets in India. 

"There is some information that temples in Kerala were on their radar. But we need to examine this further," an official told IANS. 

Kerala's police chief Jacob Punnoose is already on record stating that Rana had stayed in a hotel in Kochi on November 16 last year. 

Rana, a Canadian citizen, was posing as an immigration consultant and had advertised in newspapers for temporary jobs in US and Canada giving preference to ex-armymen

The costs for these print ads were reportedly paid by Headley's job agency in Tardeo, Mumbai which was another front. However, sources said the advertisements were a signal to the sleeper cells of their presence and to let them know about the meeting point during their India sojourn. 

Headley and Rana, who are graduates of a military academy in the town of Hasan Abdal in Pakistan, had maintained e-mail contact with other former students, including officers in Pakistan's military.

They apparently belonged to a group of the school's graduates who referred to themselves as the "abdalians" in internet postings, according to FBI affidavits. 

Rahul Bhatt did not train Headley, says Moksh gym management 

Mumbai, Nov 20 (IANS) The multimedia house, Pritish Nandy Communications Ltd, said Thursday that Rahul Bhatt, son of eminent filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt did not train Lashkar-e-Taiba suspect David Coleman Headley at its Moksh gym where he was a member.

Headley was a member of Moksh between October 2006 and October 2007 and sometimes came there for a workout, Bobbie Ghosh, chief operating officer of PNCL, said in a statement late Thursday evening.

Rahul Bhatt worked as a trainer at Moksh only between August 2001 and May 2002.

Hence, media reports that Bhatt had trained Headley at Moksh "are incorrect" and "any relationship they may have had or not had is not the knowledge of Moksh and its management", Ghosh said.

He also denied certain media reports that Moksh had terminated the services of its staffer, Vilas Warak.

Rahul Bhatt and other members of the film industry have been under a scanner ever since Headley's links started unravelling after he was arrested by the US FBI in Chicago last month.

Later, India's National Investigation Agency (NIA) started a probe to find out whether Headley was linked to last year's 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks.