US prosecutors charged a Pakistani-American with helping in the 2008 Mumbai attacks by identifying possible targets and landing sites and reporting back to a Pakistan-based militant group.

David Headley is accused of making trips to Mumbai over a period of almost two years, even taking boat tours around the city's harbor to scope out landing sites for the attackers, who killed 166 people including six Americans.

NONEHe was arrested in October over a plot to attack a Danish newspaper that printed incendiary pictures of the Prophet Mohammed, but on Monday US justice officials released a raft of new charges related to the Mumbai attacks.

The Washington-born, Chicago resident stands accused of conspiring to bomb public places in India, of seeking to murder and maim persons in India and Denmark, and of aiding and abetting the murder of US citizens in India.

After agreeing to conduct surveillance for the Pakistani militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), Headley allegedly changed his name from Daood Gilani in February 2006 so he could pass in India as an American who was neither Muslim or Pakistani.

"He later made five extended trips to Mumbai -- in September 2006, February and September 2007, and April and July 2008 -- each time taking pictures and making videotapes of various targets, including those attacked in November 2008," according to a statement from the Justice Department.

"After each trip that Headley took... he allegedly returned to Pakistan, met with other co-conspirators and provided them with photographs, videos and oral descriptions of various locations."

60-hour siege

The attacks, which began on November 26, 2008, also left hundreds wounded as 10 heavily-armed Islamist gunmen storming India's financial capital, sparking a bloody, 60-hour siege shown live on television around the world.

NONEIndia and Washington blamed the deadly rampage on Pakistan's banned militant group LeT. The attacks stalled a fragile four-year peace process between the two nuclear-armed south Asian rivals.

A Justice Department spokesman confirmed to AFP that Headley, the son of a former Pakistani diplomat, was born in Washington DC and was alleged to have attended LeT training camps earlier this decade in Pakistan.

Headley, who at one time also reportedly ran a video store in Philadelphia, was arrested by the FBI on October 3 at Chicago O'Hare airport attempting to board a flight to Pakistan via Philadelphia.

The US Justice Department had announced earlier charges on October 27 against Headley and Tahawwur Hussain Rana, a Canadian citizen born in Pakistan, over a plot to attack Denmark's Jyllands-Posten newspaper.

Prosecutors said on Monday that a third man, Abdur Rehman Hashim Syed, a retired major in the Pakistani military, had been charged over the same plot.

"Abdur Rehman... allegedly played the central role in communicating with Headley and facilitating contacts with other co-conspirators in Pakistan, including members of Lashkar," the charge sheet said.

The men allegedly spent at least a year working with the LeT on a plan to attack the offices of the Jyllands-Posten newspaper in Copenhagen and Arhus that they called "The Mickey Mouse Project."

Headley admitted to the FBI after his arrest that he had been working since before 2006 with Lashkar, a Pakistan-based radical Islamic group that has long fought Indian rule in divided Kashmir.

'Strongly rejects'

A Lashkar-e-Taiba spokesman told AFP late last month that the group "strongly reject(s) claims that Headley and Rana are associated" with the militants.

NONEHeadley has admitted to conducting two "surveillance" trips to Denmark in January and July 2009 in which he toured the offices of the Jyllands-Posten.

It was not clear if he had also confessed to the latest charges related to the Mumbai attacks. The Justice Department said only that he was cooperating with the ongoing investigations into both plots.

"This case serves as a reminder that the terrorist threat is global in nature and requires constant vigilance at home and abroad," said David Kris, Assistant Attorney General for National Security.

"We continue to share leads developed in this investigation with our foreign and domestic law enforcement partners as we work together on this important matter."

Headley faces an arraignment hearing Wednesday in Chicago.

-AFP