CHICAGO : A Chicago businessman accused of helping plot an attack on a Danish newspaper and having such close ties to terrorists that he had advance knowledge of the deadly 2008 Mumbai siege was denied bail Tuesday.

“The government has met its burden of showing serious risk of flight,” Magistrate Judge Nan Nolan said as she ordered Tahawwur Hussain Rana held in jail pending trial.

Rana has been charged with helping David Coleman Headley — an old friend from military — plot an attack on the Danish newspaper that published caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed (PBUH).

On Monday prosecutors also alleged that Rana knew of the 2008 deadly terror attacks in Mumbai days before they occurred, and sent his compliments to the man who planned the bloody 60-hour siege which left 166 dead and hundreds wounded.

While Rana has not been charged in that case, prosecutors have said Headley is cooperating and that the investigation in Rana’s conduct “continues.”

Prosecutors allege that the two men discussed both plots in a secretly recorded conversation and that Rana helped Headley use Rana’s Chicago-based immigration company as a cover for his surveillance trips to India and Denmark.

It was also revealed by prosecutors on Monday that the pair had discussed four other potential targets for attacks: Bollywood, the Indian temple Somnath, the National Defense College in Delhi, and the Shiv Sena, a political party in India with roots in Hindu nationalism.

“It is clear from the conversation and extrinsic corroboration that Rana was told just days before the Mumbai attacks that the attacks were about to happen,” prosecutors wrote in a 10-page memo in support of his continued detention.

Rana’s lawyers maintain he was simply “duped” by Headley and had no knowledge of or involvement in, any terror attacks.

They said evidence from three character witnesses shows that the Pakistani-born Canadian citizen has developed a reputation in Chicago as an honest businessman who advocates non-violence.

Defense attorney Patrick Blegen attacked the government’s contention that Rana was briefed on the Mumbai attack shortly after visiting the Indian capital in November 2008.

“They’re saying he knew about some terrorist plan and took his wife along on some sort of jaunt,” Blegen told the court. “I say that’s absurd.”

Blegen said government transcripts of the conversation recorded by the Federal Bureau of Investigation were “as much unintelligible as they are intelligible” and do not prove that Rana knew anything.

Asked by reporters if he was concerned about what Headley might tell investigators, Blegen said “If he’s cooperating he may not be telling the truth.”

While Nolan limited her ruling to whether Rana posed a flight risk, she disagreed with Blegen’s interpretation of the evidence.

“The defense’s argument that the evidence will show Mr. Rana was duped is not a fair reading of the evidence revealed to date,” Nolan said.

Rana has the “means and knowledge to flee internationally, he has substantial financial resources and international contacts,” Nolan said in announcing her ruling.

“There are no conditions of release that would reasonably ensure his appearance.”

Blegen told reporters that he and his client had hoped Nolan would deem house arrest, electronic surveillance and a high bond sufficient.

“In light of the circumstances his spirits are good,” Blegen told reporters after meeting with Rana.

“Obviously he’s disappointed, as am I but he is as I am very much looking forward to contesting these charges when we have the opportunity to in court.”

Prosecutors have until January 14 to convince a grand jury to indict Rana on the charges.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan News: Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has said the troops have been call back from Kohlu in Balochistan and replaced by the Frontier Constabulary.

Addressing joint session of the parliament here on Wednesday Gilani said the government has determined to explore the causes of the killing of veteran Baloch leader Nawab Akbar Bugti.

He said under the Youth programme employment will be provided to 10000 Baloch youth.

Prime Minister Gilani said that the government was ready to engage all exile leaders of Balochistan in dialogue.

He charged India of interference in Balochistan adding that the evidence to this respect will be provided at proper forum.

Lakewood Police Shooting, The persecution following the tragic shooting Lakewood Police on the outskirts of Seattle continues with police saying that the shooter may be injured.

Four officers, three men and one woman, were gunned down in the coffee shop in Parkwood Forza company Sunday morning in what police say was shot execution style and not a robbery went wrong.

Of a new runway in the case of wine, while the police spoke to witnesses and considered the evidence, which points to a compliance officer for several rounds before being killed. “There is evidence that a Lakewood police officer fired several shots, and we hope it struck,” said a police spokesman. “If we hit, which means he’s hurt somewhere with a bullet wound.”

Police have issued an alert to local hospitals and medical centers. They also warn that the attacker may have traveled outside the Seattle metropolitan area to seek treatment in an attempt to stay off the radar.

The suspect is described as African American “messy”, between 5′7 “and 5′11″ and between the ages of 20 and 30.

Calling them “pseudo-moderates,” the Justice Manmohan Singh Liberhan Commission of Inquiry has indicted former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee along with current Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha L K Advani and former BJP president Murli Manohar Joshi, among others, for the demolition of the Babri Masjid on December 6, 1992.

Citing the evidence it gathered, which includes witness statements and official records, one of the key conclusions of the Commission is said to be that the entire build-up to the demolition was meticulously planned. And there was nothing to show that these leaders were either unaware of what was going on or innocent of any wrongdoing. The Commission probed the “sequence of events leading, and all facts and circumstances relating, to the occurrences at Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid complex on December 6, 1992” — the day the Babri Masjid was martyred.

LONDON: Jittery US authorities unintentionally hampered an investigation into a plot to blow up at least seven transatlantic airliners, a former British police commissioner said on Tuesday.

Andy Hayman, who worked on the case, said he suspects that the US authorities, fearful of US deaths if the plot was carried out, pressured Pakistan to arrest the suspected mastermind of the plot prematurely.

Hayman, former assistant commissioner of specialist operations in the Metropolitan Police in 2006, said that arrest “hampered our evidence-gathering and placed us in Britain under intolerable pressure.”

A British court on Monday found three men guilty of plotting to blow up transatlantic airliners using liquid explosives, in what would have been a “terrorist event of global proportions.”

The plot, whose discovery in 2006 triggered wide-ranging new rules on carrying liquids on commercial aircraft, was to carry out bombings on aircraft flying from London’s Heathrow airport to the United States and Canada.

A counter-terrorism operation to prevent the plot was the biggest ever in Britain, costing 35 million pounds (57 million dollars, 40 million euros).

Hayman said throughout the investigation, then British prime minister Tony Blair and US president George W. Bush were being briefed.

“Fearful for the safety of American lives, the US authorities had been getting edgy, seeking reassurance that this was not going to slip through our hands,” Hayman said, writing in the Times.

“We thought we had managed to persuade them to hold back so we could develop new opportunities and get more evidence to present to the courts. “But I was never convinced that they were content with that position. In the end, I strongly suspect that they lost their nerve and had a hand in triggering the arrest in Pakistan.”

“The arrest hampered our evidence-gathering and placed us in Britain under intolerable pressure.”

The arrest in Pakistan of suspected mastermind Rashid Rauf, a British-Pakistani citizen, forced British police to bring forward their arrests in Britain of a number of suspects under surveillance.

Police were forced to move quickly, fearful that Rauf’s arrest would tip off the suspects and possibly prompt them into action.

“We believed the Americans had demanded the arrest (of Rauf) and we were angry we had not been informed,” he said.

“We were being forced to take action, to arrest a number of suspects, which normally would have required days of planning and briefing.”

WASHINGTON: Mohamed ElBaradei, the outgoing head of the UN atomic watchdog, called the threat from Iran “hyped” and said there was no evidence that the Islamic republic will soon have nuclear weapons. In an interview released Tuesday, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) hit back at critics who accuse the Egyptian of covering up Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

“In many ways, I think the threat has been hyped,” ElBaradei told the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, a Chicago-based magazine critical of nuclear weapons. “Yes, there’s concern about Iran’s future intentions and Iran needs to be more transparent with the IAEA and international community,” he said. “But the idea that we’ll wake up tomorrow and Iran will have a nuclear weapon is an idea that isn’t supported by the facts as we have seen them so far,” he said.

In a report last week, the IAEA said that Iran had slowed production of enriched uranium, which can be used to make a nuclear bomb, and agreed to tighter monitoring of its enrichment plant. The United States downplayed the report, saying that Iran was still not co-operating fully with the UN inspectors.

Israel’s Haaretz newspaper said that the IAEA report did not include a classified annex incriminating Iran. Israel has long been critical of ElBaradei and asked in 2007 that he be fired. ElBaradei, who along with the IAEA as an institution won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005, rejected the criticism.”About Iran, I’ve been told, ‘Mind your own business; you’re a technician.’ And yet, at other times, on other matters, I have been told that I’m the custodian of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty – sometimes by the very people who tell me to mind my own business when it comes to Iran,” he said. “I don’t put much stock in either designation. I’m neither a custodian nor a technician; I’m merely someone who is trying to do his job,” he said. ElBaradei steps down at the end of November, handing over to Yukiya Amano, a veteran Japanese diplomat.

NEW DELHI: Indian National Security Advisor MK Narayanan has said India will not resume the composite dialogue until it will see concrete evidence that Pakistan has acted against terrorism.

In interview to an Indian newspaper Narayanan said that the leaders of India and Pakistan were agreed for it in their meeting at Sharm el-Sheikh.

“That position remains. I don’t see any change in that position at any time,” Indian national security advisor said.

Replying a question about the nuclear deal with United States, the Indian national security top official said that India will file a declaration in the IAEA. “

“We are taking things cautiously, doing things step by step. If we take a step we cannot retrace that would make things difficult. We’ve now reached a stage when we are comfortable and we will file the declaration. And we will fill in the Annexure, which is part of the Separation plan. Once you enter into an international agreement we do not back out. The declaration is the final step as far as the IAEA is concerned. With the US, discussions are underway on the reprocessing agreement under 6(iii) of the 123 agreement.”