Gujarat’s Shri Somnath mandir was one of the four targets of 26/11 co-accused David Headley.

This fact emerged during his testimony in a Chicago District Court on the third day of the trial of his childhood friend and Pakistani-Canadian Tawahhur Rana.

An admitted American terrorist David Headley identified several more targets he “liked” for future attacks during a conversation with a Chicago businessman on trial in the deadly 2008 Mumbai attacks.

Rana has been slapped with a dozen charges in connection with the November 2008 attack in which 166 persons were killed while Headley, a Pakistani-American and a star prosecution witness, has pleaded guilty.

In a transcript of a phone conversation read aloud in court, Headley told Rana of several other targets he favored, Somnath – an ancient temple in Gujarat, Bollywood(the Indian movie industry) Shiv Sena and Jyllands Posten, the Danish newspaper which published the controversial cartoons of Prophet Mohammed.

Headley, who said he started working with Lashkar in 2000, said the Pakistan-based terror group, and the ISI operate under the same umbrella. As Headley scouted sites for targets in Mumbai, he met regularly and received money from someone he said was an ISI major, known only as “Major Iqbal.”

Iqbal and Headley’s regular Lashkar contact, Sajid Mir, both gave him the same instructions for where to go and what to scope out, he said. Headley would provide videos he took of sights in Mumbai to Iqbal and then to Mir. Headley said Mir and Iqbal were in contact with each other. Headley has testified that Rana was apprised of all developments and largely approved.

In October 2008, Headley said he and his Lashkar and ISI handlers all met together in Pakistan, about a month before the Mumbai attacks. During this meeting, the men also talked for the first time about a separate plot to attack a Danish newspaper that in 2005 had printed cartoons of Prophet Muhammad, Headley said. That plot was foiled by law enforcement.