Canada is helping investigators in India with their probe of the Mumbai massacre, and the possible involvement of a Canadian in one of the worst terrorist attacks since Sept. 11, 2001.
Counterterrorism agencies in New Delhi are seeking information from federal authorities about Tahawwur Hussain Rana, a 48-year-old Canadian immigration consultant who was arrested last month in Chicago with an alleged U.S. accomplice, David Headley, 49.
U.S. prosecutors have publicly alleged both men, childhood friends originally from Pakistan, hatched a plot to kill a Danish journalist who published cartoons lampooning the Prophet Mohammed. Yet in India, suspicions are emerging that the two men helped a notorious Pakistani terrorist group scout Indian and Western targets before last year's massacre of nearly 200 civilians.
Leaked details of the Indian counterterrorism investigation suggest Mr. Rana used his Canadian passport to travel to Mumbai in the days before the Nov. 26 attacks, and ended up in Karachi.
The same reports suggest Mr. Headley (who recently Westernized his name from "Daood Gilani") was also in Karachi on the day of the strike.
Canadian federal officials would not discuss details of their investigative help yesterday. Chris McCluskey, a spokesman for Canadian Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan, said in an interview only that "we are co-operating with the Indian government to combat terrorism."
But Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who yesterday visited a Mumbai synagogue that was targeted in the terrorist strike, went out of his way to denounce the attacks. "Innocent citizens of this very city were subjected to outrageous acts of terror that shocked the world," he said after his visit to the synagogue. "These acts are acts which all peoples, which Canadians, Indians and all civilized people, utterly condemn."
Ten terrorist gunmen had targeted the Chabad House synagogue and specific hotels frequented by Westerners. They are thought to have deployed from Karachi, using dinghies to land at Mumbai before breaking off into two-man teams to attack their targets.
The gunmen are not thought to have scouted Mumbai themselves. Yet they were so well organized that Indian authorities were powerless to prevent more than 180 civilians from being gunned down as the world watched.
The ranks of the dead included Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife, discovered at the synagogue with their two-year-old son weeping over their bodies. "Such vile, barbaric acts is the motivation behind our contributions to the international effort in Afghanistan," Mr. Harper said yesterday.
The Mumbai attacks were hatched by the self-described "Army of the Pure," or Lashkar-e-Taiba, increasingly regarded as a jihadist threat similar to the Taliban.
For years, Lashkar-e-Taiba had acted as a proxy militia as Pakistani intelligence sought to carve out a buffer zone from disputed territories in Kashmir. The network has shown a recent inclination toward launching al-Qaeda-style attacks across India.
Ottawa blacklisted Lashkar in 2004, which allows the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and the RCMP to probe its support and financing networks, and better assist allies who ask for investigative help.
Fighting the terrorism group is a growing priority after last year's massacre. Yet as the one-year Nov. 26 anniversary approaches, investigators are still trying to determine how the attacks were pulled off.
Some clues may be emerging.
Mr. Rana and Mr. Headley attended the same military school in Pakistan decades ago. Little is known about how they acquired citizenship in Canada and the United States respectively before both ending up in Chicago.
For years, Mr. Rana, the Canadian, operated a busy immigration consultancy in a South Asian enclave in Chicago.
The business is now under a microscope. The FBI seized its computers and documents when it arrested Mr. Rana last month. "Rana personally has engaged in recent, frequent international travel. Rana is fluent in documents necessary for immigration and border crossing," U.S. prosecutors argue in court documents filed ahead of a bail hearing on Thursday.
