Jury clears Chicago businessman in Mumbai attacks (AP)

CHICAGO – A federal jury convicted a Chicago businessman on Thursday of helping plot an attack against a Danish newspaper that printed cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad but cleared him of the most serious terrorism charge accusing him of cooperating in the deadly 2008 rampage in Mumbai.

The jury reached its split verdict after two days of deliberations, finding Tahawwur Rana guilty of providing material support to terrorism in Denmark and to the Pakistani militant group that had claimed responsibility for the three-day siege in India's largest city that left more than 160 people dead, including six Americans.

The jurors, who were not identified in court, declined to talk to the media to explain their decision, which defense attorneys described as conflicting. Rana, a Canadian national who has lived in Chicago for years, faces up to 30 years in prison on the two charges.

"We're extremely disappointed. We think they got it wrong," defense attorney Patrick Blegen told reporters.

At the center of the trial was testimony by the government's star witness, David Coleman Headley, Rana's longtime friend who previously pleaded guilty to laying the groundwork for the Mumbai attacks and planning to attack the Danish paper in retaliation for printing the cartoons that had angered many Muslims because pictures of the prophet are prohibited in Islam. That plot was never carried out.

Headley's testimony was closely watched worldwide because it provided a rare glimpse into the inner workings of the Pakistani militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba, which took credit for the Mumbai attacks, and the alleged cooperation with Pakistan's top intelligence agency known as the ISI. The trial started just weeks after Navy SEALs found Osama bin Laden hiding outside Islamabad, raising concerns that Pakistan may have been protecting the world's most wanted terrorist.

Pakistani officials have denied the allegations and maintained that it did not know about bin Laden or help plan the Mumbai attacks.

Defense attorneys spent much of their time trying to discredit Headley, who they claim duped his friend from a Pakistani boarding school. They attacked Headley's character saying he initially lied to the FBI, lied to a judge and even lied to his own family. They claimed he implicated Rana in the plot because he wanted to make a deal with prosecutors, something he'd learned after he became an informant for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration after two heroin convictions.

But prosecutors claimed that Rana, 50, knew exactly what he was doing when he helped Headley. Rana, who did not testify, was on trial for allegedly allowing Headley to open a branch of his Chicago-based immigration law services business in Mumbai as a cover story while Headley conducted surveillance ahead of the November 2008 attacks. He was also accused of letting Headley, whose cooperation means he avoids the death penalty and extradition, travel as a representative of the company in Copenhagen.

Prosecutors made a Sept. 7, 2009, recorded phone call between Rana and Headley the centerpiece of their evidence against Rana. In the call, the men discussed the Mumbai attacks and Headley talked about future targets, including the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten.

Prosecutors also questioned the validity of Rana wanting to open a branch of his office in Denmark and sending Headley to the Copenhagen newspaper's office simply to inquire about advertising, which could have been done via email or telephone.

U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald told reporters after the verdict that he was gratified by the jury's decision and disagreed with defense attorneys who said the verdict was conflicting because he was convicted of supporting Lashkar-e-Taiba but acquitted of charges that he helped in the Mumbai attacks.

"There's lots of ways you could explain it, but I haven't spoken to the jury," Fitzgerald said. "There was clearly evidence that he knew he was working with Lashkar."

In court, prosecutors played clips of Rana's post-arrest statement to the FBI, where he said that he knew Headley had trained with Lashkar, which the U.S. has declared a terrorist organization. It was also clear from the recording that Rana was at least aware of the others allegedly involved in the Danish plot.

Six others were charged in absentia in the case, including an ISI member known only as "Major Iqbal" and Headley's Lashkar handler Sajid Mir. According to Headley's testimony, Lashkar was initially involved in planning the Danish plot. But after the Mumbai attacks, the group decided to lay low, according to Headley, who said he proceeded to work with another militant group.

While much of Headley's testimony had been heard before — both through the indictment and a report released by the Indian government last year — he did reveal a few new details. Among them was that another militant leader Ilyas Kashmiri, who U.S. officials believed to be al-Qaida's military operations chief in Pakistan, had plotted to attack U.S. defense contractor Lockheed Martin. Kashmiri was reported killed on June 3 by U.S. drone attacks inside Pakistan. While U.S. officials haven't confirmed the death, Pakistani officials say they're certain Kashmiri is dead.

Headley said he worked with Kashmiri in the plot against the Danish paper, describing how the militant wanted a "stronghold approach." One plan including taking hostages in the building and killing them quickly by beheading them.

"He said we should throw out the heads of the hostages from the windows," Headley said of Kashmiri, speaking in a monotone and seemingly detached voice. "He said shoot them first and then behead them later, so there wouldn't be a struggle."

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Associated Press writer Deanna Bellandi contributed to this report.

NATO helicopter attacks Pakistani army post (AP)

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan – Pakistani troops and a NATO helicopter that crossed into Pakistani territory exchanged fire on Tuesday, wounding two soldiers, local officials said, and Pakistan protested, further straining relations with the West following the U.S. raid that killed Osama bin Laden.

Also Tuesday, the army said a "senior al-Qaida operative" had been arrested in the port city of Karachi. In a brief statement, it said Yemeni national Muhammad Ali Qasim Yaqub, alias Abu Sohaib Al Makki, had been working directly under al Qaida leaders along the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. It did not say when he was arrested.

An American official said the suspect was a mid-level al-Qaida operative and praised the Pakistani military. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss matters of intelligence.

Pakistan's army and intelligence agencies have faced intense international suspicions since bin Laden was killed on May 2 in an American raid on a large house in the army town of Abbottabad not far from the capital. Many American lawmakers have said bin Laden's location was a strong sign that Pakistan was playing a "double game" — that is accepting U.S. aid but also protecting terrorists. Pakistan denies that.

The army said the arrest was a "major development in unraveling the al-Qaida network operating in the region."

The NATO firing incident took place in the Datta Khel area of the North Waziristan tribal region, a known sanctuary for Taliban and al-Qaida militants that launch attacks inside Afghanistan as well as Pakistan. It has been targeted repeatedly by covert U.S. drone strikes.

A Western military official in Afghanistan and a NATO spokesman said there was firing at the border, but they did not confirm that Pakistani border troops were the target or had been hit.

The Pakistani army, facing internal criticism for failing to detect or stop the unilateral American raid that killed bin Laden, said it lodged a strong protest and demanded a meeting with NATO officials to discuss the incident. NATO said it would investigate.

A similar event last year in which two Pakistani soldiers were killed prompted the army to immediately close a key border crossing to NATO supplies heading from Pakistan into landlocked Afghanistan, dramatically exposing the vulnerability of the war effort.

The Western military official said a NATO base in Afghanistan took intermittent direct and indirect fire from the Pakistani side of the border. Two helicopters flew into the area, and one fired across the border after twice taking fire from the Pakistani side, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

NATO declined to say which coalition country was involved, but most of the helicopters that fly in that part of Afghanistan are American.

Relations between the United States and Pakistan have been tense since the Navy SEALs raid on May 2.

The Pakistani government is outraged that the U.S. carried out the operation without telling Pakistan first, and many U.S. officials have expressed disbelief that bin Laden could have lived in Abbottabad for at least five years without the authorities' knowledge.

NATO said it was still trying to determine whether the helicopter crossed in to Pakistani airspace.

"We're investigating the incident to determine a flight path by examining GPS waypoints in the helicopter computer, to construct a sequence of events and ultimately determine what led to the exchange of fire," said Dorrian, the NATO spokesman.

Dorrian said NATO will work with the Pakistani government to determine what happened, saying they expect it will reflect the same good cooperation seen in recent military operations along the border. In recent weeks, NATO and Pakistan have launched coordinated offensives against militants on their respective sides of the border.

"This is going to be transparently looked into," Dorrian said.

The Pakistani army said in a statement that its troops fired on the helicopter after it entered Pakistani airspace in the early hours of the morning. Two of its troops were injured when the helicopter returned fire, it said.

The helicopter attack came a day after U.S. Sen. John Kerry wrapped up a 24-hour visit to Islamabad in which he worked to salvage the relationship with Pakistan, but also warned the government that "actions, not words" were needed to get ties back on track. Kerry was the most high-profile American to visit Pakistan since the raid on bin Laden.

Also Tuesday, Pakistani security forces shot and killed four would-be suicide bombers, including three women, when they tried to attack an army checkpoint in the southwestern city of Quetta, said Daood Junejo, the city police chief. A fifth suicide bomber detonated his explosives but did not injure anyone, the police chief said.

Security forces stopped the five as they approached the checkpoint in a car, said Junejo. One of the men got out of the car and blew himself up. The other four, who were also wearing suicide vests, were shot when they tried to lob grenades, he said.

However, local TV footage showed what appeared to be security forces shooting at two of the women as they were laying on the ground, one of them with her hand raised over her head.

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Vogt reported from Kabul, Afghanistan. Associated Press writers Sebastian Abbot in Islamabad and Abdul Sattar in Quetta, Pakistan, contributed to this report.