The Islamist worldwide war against Western values of freedom of speech and democracy continues unabated with the charging yesterday of two Muslims in America for planning an attack on the Danish newspaper which published the “Mohammed” cartoons in 2005.

A 49-year-old Muslim who is an American citizen and a 48-year-old ‘Canadian national’ were both arrested in Chicago on charges of preparing a terrorist attack against the Jyllands-Posten newspaper and other targets in Denmark.

The two men have been named as Daood Gilani and Tahawwur Hussain Rana. Gilani, who is the ‘American national’, changed his name legally to David Coleman Headley in 2006.

Gilani has been charged with one count of conspiracy to commit terrorist acts involving murder and maiming outside the United States and another count of conspiracy to provide material support to the conspiracy.

Rana has been charged with one count of conspiracy to provide material support to the foreign conspiracy involving Headley and three other individuals.

In papers filed with the court, FBI officials said the two had met while attending school together in Pakistan. The affidavit for their arrest states that, beginning in 2008, Gilani and Rana had correspondence about what they called the “Mickey Mouse Project” — or “mmp, for short — and “the northern project.”

Gilani was detained at O’Hare International Airport on 3 October, where he was leaving for Pakistan via Philadelphia. He admitted to having received training from Lashkar-e-Taiba, which the Department of Justice’s press release describes as “a Pakistan-based terrorist organisation.”

Gilani also acknowledged that the plan called for either attacking Jyllands-Posten buildings or killing both the newspaper’s former cultural editor and the cartoonist Kurt Westergaard.

Rana, who runs several companies, including a meat-processing plant specialising in Islamic foods, was arrested at his home on 18 October.

“The service sees this case as being very serious,” said Jakob Scharf, the head of the Danish Intelligence and Security Service (PET), in a press release.

“One of those arrested has an extensive network among leading militant extremists in Pakistan, who not only want to attack Denmark but have also shown previously that they are capable of ruthless terrorist attacks.”

According to the US Department of Justice, Gilani travelled to Denmark twice this year — in January and July — to reconnoitre and select targets.

Reports from British intelligence sources have revealed that two thirds of all terrorist plots in Britain originate in Pakistan.