Lashkar planning several Mumbai-style attacks on India

Melbourne, Dec. 13 (ANI): The Lashkar-e-Taiba has reportedly been planning one or more additional Mumbai-style attacks on India.

FBI and US Justice Department officials spent last week in India and Pakistan as part of an urgent effort to head off such an attack, sharing a wealth of information from their investigation into the activities of Chicago-based terror suspect David Coleman Headley, news.com.au quoted officials, as saying.

The new plots, believed to be in the works for months, are most likely against "soft" civilian targets such as hotels or synagogues frequented by Americans, Israelis and other Westerners, the officials said.

India's National Defense College and other government sites have also been scouted as targets, according to officials and FBI affidavits recently unsealed in Chicago.

The investigation has found that Headley, who is cooperating, spent much of the past few years scouting targets not only for the Mumbai siege but also for the suspected future attacks - and another in Denmark.

The authorities allege that Headley did so at the direction of two senior operatives of Pakistani militant groups who had also been members of Pakistan's military.

Those accusations are sure to exacerbate tensions in the region, but Pakistan has long denied those accusations and demanded proof. (ANI)