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Tahawwur Rana, a Pakistani-born Canadian man accused of helping plan the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, has finally been brought to India. He’s 64 years old and arrived on a special flight. Authorities say he’ll be taken to a Delhi court on Thursday, April 10.
Rana is facing serious charges in India. The National Investigation Agency (NIA) says he was part of the conspiracy that led to the Mumbai attacks, where 166 people lost their lives in a horrifying three-day siege.
But that’s not all. Investigators have also linked Rana to another terrifying plan — one with a surprisingly odd name: The Mickey Mouse Project.
A Strange Name, But a Deadly Plan
Despite the cartoonish codename, The Mickey Mouse Project was no joke. It was actually a planned terror attack targeting a newspaper in Denmark called Jyllands-Posten. This paper had published cartoons of Prophet Muhammad back in 2005, which sparked huge protests and anger across the Muslim world.
Rana and his associate, David Headley, plotted revenge. According to what Headley later told investigators, they wanted to storm the newspaper’s office in Copenhagen with guns and bombs. Their main targets? Flemming Rose, the paper’s cultural editor, and cartoonist Kurt Westergaard.
But the plan didn’t stop there. The FBI later revealed the attackers weren’t just planning to kill — they were planning to behead staff members and throw the heads into the street. It was meant to send a horrifying message and spread fear.
From Military Cadet to Accused Terrorist
Rana’s story started out very differently. He was once a cadet in the Pakistani army and trained as a doctor. Later, he moved to Canada, got citizenship, and eventually settled in Chicago, where he ran an immigration services business.
But behind that regular-looking life, Rana was allegedly helping Headley plan terror attacks. He’s accused of helping scout out spots in Mumbai ahead of the 2008 attacks — and working closely with Headley on the Denmark plot too.
They gave the Danish plan a harmless-sounding name — Mickey Mouse Project — to hide what they were really up to.
Why the Danish Plot Never Happened
Luckily, the attack in Denmark never happened. Headley was arrested in the U.S. in October 2009 before the plan could move forward. After that, he struck a deal with American prosecutors and agreed to tell them everything.
He confessed to his role in both the Mumbai attacks and the Danish plot — and named Rana as one of the key players. That testimony is a big part of why India pushed so hard to get Rana extradited.
Now that he’s in India, authorities hope they’ll finally get more answers — not just about Mumbai, but about the wider network of terror plots that stretched far beyond.
