Tahawar Hussain Rana, a former Pakistani cadet and medical student who received Canadian citizenship and since settled in Chicago, is accused of helping mastermind a terrorist plot that he and alleged conspirators dubbed the Mickey Mouse project, with branches stretching from a Toronto office tower to radical groups in Pakistan. Rana’s co-accused, a Pakistani-American who changed his name to David Headley, told the FBI he wanted to kill two Danish journalists in retaliation for their paper’s publication in 2005 of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.
The alleged conspiracy ended in a dramatic raid October 18, when more than 100 federal agents, some with assault rifles and body armor, descended on Rana’s slaughterhouse in rural Illinois while helicopters and surveillance planes buzzed overhead. Rana admitted he was aware Mr. Headley was affiliated with Pakistani terrorist groups, the FBI said.
