A Pakistani government intelligence official directed terrorists to attack the Mumbai Chabad house in their November 2008 rampage through the Indian city, a witness in a terror trial testified.

David Coleman Headley, a Pakistani American who has confessed to conducting surveillance on the site and other targets in Mumbai for the Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist group, gave the testimony in Chicago federal court last week at the trial of an alleged accomplice.

Headley testified that his handler was an official of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate identified as Major Iqbal.

“Major Iqbal told me the Chabad house would be added on whatever list” of targets, Headley said, “because it was a front office for the Mossad.”

There is no evidence for the assertion of a link between the Chabad house and the Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence service.

Pakistan has denied involvement in the Mumbai attacks, which left 164 people dead. Six people, including three Americans, were murdered at the Chabad house. — jta