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CHICAGO: The allegations against Chicago businessman Tahawwur Rana are fairly straightforward: He helped a former boarding school friend serve as a scout for terrorists who carried out a 2008 rampage that killed more than 160 people in Mumbai, India.
But the implications of Rana's trial, which begins with jury selection Monday in Chicago, could be enormous: To make their case, federal prosecutors may lay bare alleged connections between the militant group blamed for the Mumbai attack and Pakistan's main intelligence agency, which has come under increasing scrutiny after Osama bin Laden was found living in a compound not far from Pakistan's capital.
The key government witness could be David Coleman Headley, a Pakistani-American with a troubled past who pleaded guilty last year to laying the groundwork for the Mumbai attack by the Pakistani militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba.
Headley is cooperating with US officials and told interrogators that Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency provided training and funds for the attack against India, the country's longtime nemesis.
Headley told authorities that Rana provided him with cover for his Mumbai scouting missions. Headley also told interrogators that he was in contact with another militant with ties to al-Qaida who was helping plot a separate bomb attack against a newspaper in Denmark whose cartoons had offended Muslims.
On the heels of bin Laden's May 2 killing, Headley's testimony and other details from Rana's trial could further strain the already delicate ties between the US and Pakistan, a critical relationship in the global battle against terrorism.
The discovery of bin Laden living in a walled compound in Abbottabad, an army garrison town near the capital Islamabad, has led to suspicions that at least some Pakistani intelligence officials knew of the al-Qaida leader's presence and perhaps were protecting him.
That has deepened suspicions that Pakistani agents secretly work with terrorist organizations despite receiving billions in US aid every year.
''What you'll have now in Chicago is a trial which will undoubtedly demonstrate links between Pakistan government agencies and one of the most competent terrorist organizations operating in South Asia _ Lashkar-e-Taiba,'' said Seth Jones, a senior political scientist at the RAND Corp. The trial ''just adds more fuel to an already tense situation.''
The US raid that killed bin Laden as met with growing condemnation from Pakistani government leaders, military officials, the Parliament and Islamic hard-liners.
The Pakistani government has threatened reprisals, and the Parliament on Saturday passed a nonbinding resolution demanding a halt to US drone missile strikes against militants in the tribal areas.
