L.Pavarotti & C.Dion & B. Adams ...All For Love
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Musik Musik Musik Makes the El Mundo go around
Carla Maffioletti sings Gesú Bambino
Gesù Bambino (Luciano Pavarotti)
ricky martin and pavarotti - mamma
PAVAROTTI and DARREN HAYES Pavarotti and Friends
Luciano Pavarotti Mamma, son tanto felice (Bixio) Budapest
Luciano Pavarotti and George Michael - Don't Let The Sun Go
Luciano Pavarotti & Enrique Iglesias
Pavarotti & Friends Celine Dion My Heart Will Go On
Gesù Bambino (Luciano Pavarotti)
ricky martin and pavarotti - mamma
PAVAROTTI and DARREN HAYES Pavarotti and Friends
Luciano Pavarotti Mamma, son tanto felice (Bixio) Budapest
Luciano Pavarotti and George Michael - Don't Let The Sun Go
Luciano Pavarotti & Enrique Iglesias
Pavarotti & Friends Celine Dion My Heart Will Go On
Saturday, November 29, 2008
India Is Pointing in the Right Direction
By Claus Christian Malzahn
Mumbai a terror zone, and India bitterly points its finger at Pakistan. The unloved neighbor needs all the help the West can offer. Pakistan is nearly a failed state -- and a US invasion under President Obama can't be ruled out.
It is still not clear who exactly carried out the terror attacks in Mumbai this week. But the actions speak for themselves. The murderers expressly went after Britons, Americans and Jews. In the world's largest democracy, attacks were carried out by a determined minority against the will of an overwhelming majority. The crimes bear the clear and bloody fingerprints of militant, political Islamism.
The uncomfortable resonance left behind by the series of attacks is that the criminals were almost omnipotent: They could strike where, when and -- almost -- whomever they wanted. The terror didn't just claim its victims in one awful moment; it spread out and lasted for days. There was a similar feeling during the terror attacks on the living quarters of Westerners in Saudi Arabia in 2004 as well as the battle at Pakistan's Red Mosque, in the center of Islamabad. But this time the terror overtook an entire city.
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The attacks struck the heart of an Indian civil society that has always functioned fairly well, despite recurring conflicts between the country's Hindu majority and Muslim minority. The terror struck a country that is closely allied, politically and economically, with the West. The terrorists' mission can be neatly summarized: political, economic and cultural destabilization of the whole subcontinent.
The attacks were an attempt to spread religious war from the whole of Afghanistan and regions of Pakistan to their southern neighbor, India. It's obvious the terrorists follow the ideology of al-Qaida, though it's unclear whether the head of that organization gave orders for this mission. Perhaps we'll never know -- it wouldn't be the first time. But we can assume the murderers from Mumbai see themselves as part of an international movement in which Zawahiri and bin Laden hold high ranks.
Now the population of India, shocked to the core by the brutality, is pointing unmistakably in one direction: to the northwest. "Elements with links to Pakistan" are responsible for the massacre, says India's foreign minister. Several terrorists have Pakistani backgrounds, say Indian officials, though the government has so far presented no firm evidence. But a lack of evidence does not mean Pakistan had nothing to do with the well-planned attacks.
On the contrary: The Indian embassy in Kabul was made the target of a bloody attack earlier this summer. Western intelligence services have traced the attackers in that case back to the Pakistani intelligence service, the ISI. Pakistani groups in the past have often been responsible for terror attacks in India. Of course, there are also "homegrown" jihadists in India as well. But in Pakistan, above all in its tribal area near the border with Afghanistan, these fighters have the territory they need to plan the spread of their war beyond its local confines.
There have been three major wars between the two countries since 1947, when Britain withdrew and the protectorate was divided into Pakistan and India. There have also been a number of smaller armed conflicts, most recently in 1999. Even when the fighting ceases, a deep mistrust abides. The political mottos in this conflict might be summed up as, "My enemy's enemy is my friend," and "What hurts my neigbor is good for me."
These maxims, born from deep enmity, were familiar in Europe in the 19th century, when every nation thought it was better than its neighbor. But on the Indian subcontinent 21st century Islamist terrorism has to be added as a decisive political factor to these kinds of parochial ideas.
Brainwashing for the Holy War
Nevertheless, Pakistan's foreign minister offered India his help on Friday. He pledged to send the head of the ISI to share information with his Indian counterparts. These are praiseworthy developments, but it will take more than words to prevent attacks like those in Mumbai from happening again.
Even if the governments in New Delhi and Islamabad have cautiously begun to discuss their core differences, like the status of Kashmir, and even if telegrams of sympathy are sent from Islamabad to Mumbai and New Delhi, the benefits will be limited. And if the murky political and military situation in Pakistan is not clarified and solved, then the war on the terror between Kabul, Karachi and Mumbai will almost certainly be lost.
RELATED SPIEGEL ONLINE LINKS
*
A Lack of Strategy: India's Terrorism Dilemma (11/28/2008)
*
Terror in India: Struggling for Control in the Mumbai War Zone (11/28/2008)
*
Gun Battles in Mumbai: Commandos Continue to Fight Militants (11/28/2008)
*
The World from Berlin: 'Terror Acts Belong to Daily Life in India' (11/28/2008)
*
Photo Gallery: The Battle for Mumbai
*
Echoes of Al-Qaida: Looking Behind the Scenes of the Mumbai Attacks (11/27/2008)
*
Terror in India: Obama's First Test (11/27/2008)
For years a kind of death industry has been taking hold in Pakistan's tribal areas. There are hundreds of Koranic schools which could better be described as cadet schools for Islamists. Boys as young as five are sent here by their impoverished parents. The state provides hardly any free education; the schools that exist are poorly equipped. Children learn the Koran by heart in Arabic, often without understanding a word. After all they speak Pashtun, not Arabic.
The idea is to condition or brainwash them. The goal is jihad. As young men these warriors are given military training which underscores their so-called spiritual training.
Anyone who doubts the existence of this death-machinery can visit the hundreds of schools just a few hours' drive from Quetta, near Afghanistan's border. To get there one has to pass checkpoints and roadblocks erected by the ISI, Pakistan's intelligence agency. The ISI carefully protects this region, which might be described as an extended barracks for jihad, interspersed with rural villages. Why? No one in Islamabad seems willing to answer that question.
Is Pakistan a Failed State?
The Pakistani government has long ago given up control of this region. The army and the ISI, which takes a lion's share of the national budget, lead their own independent existence. Their links to the Taliban and to Islamic groups in Kashmir and India have grown.
Even if the government in Islamabad showed a will to crack down on these tribal areas, it's doubtful the army and the ISI would follow orders. Even Pakistan's former President Pervez Musharraf was unable to keep a lid on terrorism, and unlike his successor he had not just political but military power.
All in all, medium-term prospects for the subcontinent are rather gloomy. Pakistan recently had to be taken under the wing of the IMF. The state is as good as bankrupt. Its political leadership is either corrupt or -- when it comes to the military-intelligence service complex -- almost without influence.
And somewhere in Pakistan, nuclear weapons are stored. The Americans have always vouched that the weapons of mass destruction in the bunkers between Karachi and Lahore were secure -- but that was before American helicopters were fired at in Pakastani airspace by, ostensibly, their closest allies in the War on Terror.
From a political point of view Pakistan is nearly a failed state. But no Western statesman will say that out loud, because openly admitting it will not make things any easier.
The next American president seems to understand the reality of power relations in Pakistan. During the campaign, Barack Obama's rhetoric in this regard set him apart with surprising clarity from his opponent John McCain. Whereas the Republican put diplomatic negotiations with the regime in Islamabad up front and centre, Obama was open about bringing military intervention in the tribal areas into the discussion. Strengthening the US presence there seems, in any case, a firm part of Obama's agenda. The planned American withdrawal from Iraq could -- in a worst-case scenario -- be followed by an invasion of Pakistan. This must not be something he wants, at least not in the fullest sense. Even Vietnam was never imagined as a long war.
Naturally Obama will talk with the government in Islamabad. But the fact that he has emphasized military strength shows that he is soberly, if pessimistically, assessing the political power relations between the army and the Pakastani government.
The coming weeks should demonstrate what the Pakastanis are in a position to undertake in the battle against terror. If they want to prevent the Americans from raising the stakes, they must act now. Of course the chances of purging the jihad zone with one, two, or three military actions -- whether from Americans, Pakastanis, or some combination -- are very slim. If a serious battle there is now envisaged, it will be very protracted.
The Enemy of My Enemy
It's difficult to win a war when one side refuses to accept moral, military, or state boundaries while the other is permanently bound by them. Clausewitz himself might groan in despair. Carl von Clausewitz -- the Prussian war theoretician -- wrote that the goal of a war is to disarm the enemy. But how do you begin to disarm an enemy in tribal areas where it is hard to tell the difference between harmless peasants and fighters in disguise?
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The jihadis who tried to transform Mumbai into a killing zone have the deaths of Hindus, Jews, Americans, Britons, and also Germans to answer for. Like-minded people are also killing Muslims every day -- in Pakistan the attack on the Marriot hotel hit several groups that were celebrating the end of Ramadan.
These death squads can only be defeated if the political actors in the subcontinent start to see through the borderless game their enemies are playing, and if they share information and act together. This would require a level of trust and goodwill that hasn't existed between India and Pakistan for many years.
The Mumbai attacks seem to have caught the Indian government by surprise. At the moment it may not know where to direct its energies in the war against terrorism. In contrast to Pakistan, though, it retains full control of its military -- which brings its own kind of responsibility.
India's foreign minister has blamed "elements with links to Pakistan" for the terror attacks. A couple of years ago it would have called them "Pakastani elements." In the Great Game against terror in the subcontinent, this is a difference as small as it is important -- and given the depressing outlook for the region, one is thankful for any nuance that offers a glimmer of hope.
Maybe now the regimes can agree to a marriage of convenience. They, do, after all, have the same enemies.
Friday, November 28, 2008
Tribute to Fallen Heros
Mumbai/Bangalore: Mumbai is bidding a tearful farewell to Anti-Terrorism Squad chief Hemant Karkare while Bangalore gets ready for the cremation of National Security Guard commando Major Sadeep Unnikrishnan.
Karkare was killed along with two other top policemen, Additional Commissioner of police Ashok Kamte and police inspector Vijay Salaskar at Cama Hospital near the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminal when they came under fire from terrorists on Wednesday night.
His colleagues, visibly moved, paid homage to the senior officer. Karkare is survived by his wife Amruta, his two daughters Jui and Sayali and son Akash.
Major Unnikrishnan was martyred on Thursday while trying to save one of his colleagues at the Taj.
MUMBAI, India — Fire and smoke poured from the landmark Taj Mahal hotel Saturday as Indian forces battled suspected Muslim militants making a last stand inside, just hours after commandos stormed a Jewish outreach center and found six hostages dead.
More than 150 people were killed in the violence that began when gunmen attacked 10 sites across India's financial capital Wednesday night. Fifteen foreigners, including five Americans, were among the dead.
Authorities scrambled to identify those responsible for the unprecedented attack, with Indian officials pointing across the border at rival Pakistan, and Pakistani leaders promising to cooperate in the investigation. A team of FBI agents was ordered to fly to India to investigate the attacks.
With the fighting stretching into a third day, commandos killed the last two gunmen inside the luxury Oberoi hotel, where 24 bodies had been found, authorities said. Dozens of people — including a man clutching a baby and about 20 airline crewmembers — were evacuated from the Oberoi earlier Friday.
The Taj Mahal hotel was wracked by hours of intermittent gunfire and explosions that continued into Saturday morning, even though authorities said earlier that they had cleared it of gunmen. Indian forces kept up a counterattack with grenades and trading gunfire with what authorities believed was one or perhaps two militants holed up in the ballroom. TV images showed shattered windows on the building's first floor.
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CNN reported the government had cut off their live transmissions from the scene in Mumbai. Authorities have asked not to show live broadcasts of the battle because they believe the gunmen were monitoring the news. Most channels largely obliged.
The capture of the hotel would mark the end of one of the most brazen terror attacks in India's history.
PHOTOS: Mumbai reacts to attacks
AMERICAN VICTIMS: Virginia man, daughter among Mumbai terror victims
SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS:Readers discuss the 'next' attack
The coordinated strikes in Mumbai, a city of 19 million on the Arabian Sea, were the most audacious yet to be seen in India.
According to the Associated Press, more than 30 terrorists entered the city by ship, then clambered into inflatable rubber rafts around 9 p.m. Wednesday, passing through the Gateway of India — a massive archway on the Mumbai waterfront built during British colonial rule.
They focused on the kind of "soft targets" that security experts have long cited as being vulnerable around the world: two luxury hotels, a cafe, a train station, a hospital and the headquarters of a Jewish group, among others.
In the most dramatic of the counterstrikes Friday morning, masked Indian commandos rappelled from a helicopter to the rooftop of the Chabad Lubavitch Jewish center as snipers laid down cover fire.
For nearly 12 hours, explosions and gunfire erupted from the five-story building as the commandos fought their way downward, while thousands of people gathered behind barricades in the streets to watch.
The assault blew huge holes in the center, and, at one point, Indian forces fired a rocket at the building.
Soon after, elated commandos ran outside with their rifles raised over their heads in a sign of triumph.
But inside the Chabad House was a scene of tragedy.
Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak told Israel's Channel 1 TV that the bodies of three women and three men were found at the center. Some of the victims had been bound, Barak said. "All in all, it was a difficult spectacle," he said.
Local media reports, quoting top military officials, said two gunmen were found dead in the building.
Chabad Lubavitch is an ultra-Orthodox Jewish group that runs outreach centers in far-flung areas of the globe. The center in Mumbai served as a synagogue and cultural center for crowds of Israeli tourists and the small local Jewish community, the group said.
Rabbi Zalman Shmotkin, a spokesman for the Chabad Lubavitch movement, said the dead Americans at the Jewish center were Holtzberg; Bentzion Chroman, an Israeli with dual U.S. citizenship; and Leibish Teitlebaum, an American from Brooklyn. Holtzberg's wife was an Israeli citizen.
Two other U.S. victims of the attack, from a Virginia community that promotes a form of meditation, were identified Friday as Alan Scherr, 58, and daughter Naomi, 13, of Faber, Va. They were killed in a cafe Wednesday night at the Oberoi, said Bobbie Garvey, a spokeswoman for the Synchronicity Foundation.
"There are still Americans at risk on the ground and we want to be very, very careful with any facts," said U.S. State Department spokesman Gordon Duguid.
The other dead were from Australia, France, Italy, Canada, Japan, Germany, Singapore and a dual British-Cypriot citizen.
By Friday evening, at least nine gunmen had been killed, one had been arrested and as many as six were still in the hotel, said R. Patil, a top official in Maharashtra state, of which Mumbai is the capital.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh blamed "external forces" for the violence — a phrase sometimes used to refer to Pakistani militants, whom Indian authorities often blame for attacks.
On Friday, India's foreign minister Pranab Mukherjee told reporters in the western city of Jodhpur that "preliminary information" indicated that "some elements in Pakistan are responsible for Mumbai terror attacks."
"Proof cannot be disclosed at this time," he said, adding that Pakistan had assured New Delhi it would not allow its territory to be used for attacks against India.
Earlier Friday, Pakistan's Defense Minister Ahmed Mukhtar, in Islamabad, denied involvement by his country: "I will say in very categoric terms that Pakistan is not involved in these gory incidents."
Sitaram Sharma, who runs a street stall, saw that horror up close.
"I've lived in Mumbai for 50 years and never seen anything like it," Sharma said still visibly shaken hours after the bloodshed.
Sharma saw two young men in T-shirts and jeans stride past his stall and open fire with assault rifles into a sidewalk cafe filled with Western tourists.
The attacks began at about 9:20 p.m. with shooters spraying gunfire across the Chhatrapati Shivaji railroad station, one of the world's busiest terminals. For the next two hours, there was an attack roughly every 15 minutes — at the Jewish center, a tourist restaurant, one hotel, then another, and two attacks on hospitals. There were 10 targets in all.
The gunmen were well-prepared, apparently scouting some targets ahead of time and carrying large bags of almonds to keep up their energy.
"This is going to be our future — the Indian state fighting terrorists," said Suba Chandran, deputy director of the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies in the Indian capital, New Delhi. "It is going to be a long process. There is no easy solution."
Though it was unclear exactly who orchestrated the attacks, they appear to provide further evidence that the main battleground for Islamist extremists is shifting from Iraq, where violence has fallen dramatically this year, to the democracies of South Asia. Militants are inflicting heavy casualties on U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, seizing control of territory from a fragile government in Pakistan and proving they can strike just about anywhere in India.
"The implication for us is that there are bad guys still out there, and we're going to have to learn how to deal with them, because our friends are getting sucked into this big-time," said Rep. Gary Ackerman, D-N.Y., chairman of the House subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia.
In the past six months, terrorists have detonated bombs and killed dozens of people in several cities including New Delhi and the technology and outsourcing center of Bengaluru.
The very factors that in recent years have made India such a compelling success story — its impressive economic growth, its expanding ties with the West, its relatively open society — may be making it an irresistible target.
"India is going to have more problems in the future," said Edward Turzanski, senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. "It's such a large target of opportunity."
President Bush called India's prime minister Thursday from Camp David to express "solidarity with the people of India," White House press secretary Dana Perino said. President-elect Barack Obama, spending Thanksgiving in Chicago with his family, received an intelligence briefing and spoke by phone with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
The group that claimed responsibility for the attacks in an e-mail message to Indian news media — Deccan Mujahedin — was largely unknown to terrorism experts, who are divided over who its members are and where they come from.
Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network has established a refuge in the mountains along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan. Indian officials often accuse Pakistan's military spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), of orchestrating terrorist attacks inside India, particularly in the disputed region of Kashmir.
The two nuclear-armed countries almost went to war after Pakistani-backed Islamist militants attacked the Indian Parliament in December 2001, killing 12 people. After the Mumbai attacks Wednesday, Pakistan was quick to condemn the terrorists.
Christine Fair, South Asia analyst for RAND Corp., a think tank, suspects that the Mumbai terrorists are homegrown militants, bearing grievances over the way India's 140 million Muslims are treated by the Hindu majority. "This isn't India's 9/11," she said. "This is India's Oklahoma City."
Namrata Goswami, associate fellow at the Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses in New Delhi, says the attackers are domestic terrorists who sought to impress Islamist militants around the world.
"They want to establish some kind of linkage with al-Qaeda," she said. "But I don't believe it is there. The motive is very, very clear. This outfit wants to attract sponsors abroad. There's a lot of money in it."
Goswami said Indian Muslims bear plenty of grievances. They lag economically. And they have been targeted by Hindu extremists; hundreds of Muslims died, for instance, in communal riots in the Indian state Gujarat in 2002.
Other analysts, such as Sajjan Gohel, director of international security for the Asia-Pacific Foundation in London, see the attacks as part of a broader struggle to foment holy war against the West and its allies. "There could be an indigenous element," Gohel said, "but there are always transnational links, normally leading back to al-Qaeda and company in Pakistan."
Al-Qaeda has suffered heavy losses this year in Iraq, where Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari told Reuters on Thursday that the war against the militant group was in its "final stages." U.S. military commanders, however, have warned that al-Qaeda is shifting operatives back to the Pakistani-Afghan border region, and it wants to show it is still capable of spectacular attacks.
"I would be stunned if (the Mumbai attacks) were not very heavily based in Pakistan," Turzanski said.
Whoever the attackers were, they caught Indian security forces unprepared. "Till now, we were greeting with glee Pakistan's incompetence in dealing with terrorism," Bahukutumbi Raman, former head of counterterrorism for India's intelligence agency, wrote on his blog after the Mumbai attacks. "We can no longer do so. We have become as clueless as Pakistan."
The killing began at Cafe Leopold, a watering hole for Western tourists who come to unwind in a dining room decorated with a picture of Elvis Presley.
Sharma, the street salesman, said he thought he heard the pop of firecrackers left over from the recent Diwali festival. They were gunshots. He saw people running and screaming. Then he spotted two gunmen picking off patrons in the cafe.
Five minutes later, the terrorists stormed the nearby Nariman House, owned by the ultra-Orthodox Jewish group Chabad-Lubavitch. Three people — including the toddler son of Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg — walked out.
The attackers moved onto the majestic Victorian-style Chhatrapati Shivaji train station, mowing down commuters with Kalashnikov assault rifles.
At 10 p.m. Wednesday, gunmen barged into the Oberoi luxury hotel through different doors.
Madhur Kapur was enjoying dinner with her banker husband when a lone terrorist carrying a machine gun barged into the hotel's Kandahar restaurant and told everyone to freeze.
Instead, chaos ensued. Kapur fled down a fire escape and made it downstairs to the swimming pool, where Indian security forces helped her to safety. She hasn't seen her husband since.
Since 9/11, security experts have been divided over the possibility of similar attacks in the U.S.
The unprecedented nature of the attacks in Mumbai made the potential fallout that much harder to gauge.
Geopolitical research firm Stratfor noted previous attacks in India appeared designed to stoke religious violence. "As opposed to trying to rile up extremist elements in India's Hindu and Muslim communities, the attacks in Mumbai are going after the country's tourism industry, spreading fear — thereby hitting at India's economic lifelines."
Then again, India has largely avoided massive Hindu-Muslim violence, despite the terrorist provocations.
Train attacks that killed about 200 in Mumbai in July 2006 were "devastating for everyone," said Chandran at the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies. "But we bounced back the next day."
Gohel at the Asia-Pacific Foundation agreed: "India is the world's largest democracy, a vast subcontinent — It has faced many atrocities in the past, and as in the past, it will simply lick its wounds and move on."
Paul Wiseman reported from Hong Kong. Thomas Frank, Richard Wolf and Douglas Stanglin reported from McLean, Va. Contributing: Wire reports.
More than 150 people were killed in the violence that began when gunmen attacked 10 sites across India's financial capital Wednesday night. Fifteen foreigners, including five Americans, were among the dead.
Authorities scrambled to identify those responsible for the unprecedented attack, with Indian officials pointing across the border at rival Pakistan, and Pakistani leaders promising to cooperate in the investigation. A team of FBI agents was ordered to fly to India to investigate the attacks.
With the fighting stretching into a third day, commandos killed the last two gunmen inside the luxury Oberoi hotel, where 24 bodies had been found, authorities said. Dozens of people — including a man clutching a baby and about 20 airline crewmembers — were evacuated from the Oberoi earlier Friday.
The Taj Mahal hotel was wracked by hours of intermittent gunfire and explosions that continued into Saturday morning, even though authorities said earlier that they had cleared it of gunmen. Indian forces kept up a counterattack with grenades and trading gunfire with what authorities believed was one or perhaps two militants holed up in the ballroom. TV images showed shattered windows on the building's first floor.
FIND MORE STORIES IN: Germany | Japan | Virginia | France | Britain | Canada | Australia | Israel | Italy | Islam | Spain | Muslim | Pakistan | China | Alaska | Jewish | Brooklyn | Judaism | Singapore | Finland | India | Norway | Philippines | Islamabad | New Delhi | Himalayan | Channel | Mumbai | Briton | Lufthansa | Kashmir | Israel Radio | Air France | Oman | T-shirts | Taj Mahal | Arabian Sea | Maharashtra | New. | Naomi | Barak | Pakistan-based | Jodhpur | Oberoi | Chabad Lubavitch | Faber | Jewish. | Chhatrapati Shivaji | Rivka | Pranab Mukherjee | Gateway of India
CNN reported the government had cut off their live transmissions from the scene in Mumbai. Authorities have asked not to show live broadcasts of the battle because they believe the gunmen were monitoring the news. Most channels largely obliged.
The capture of the hotel would mark the end of one of the most brazen terror attacks in India's history.
PHOTOS: Mumbai reacts to attacks
AMERICAN VICTIMS: Virginia man, daughter among Mumbai terror victims
SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS:Readers discuss the 'next' attack
The coordinated strikes in Mumbai, a city of 19 million on the Arabian Sea, were the most audacious yet to be seen in India.
According to the Associated Press, more than 30 terrorists entered the city by ship, then clambered into inflatable rubber rafts around 9 p.m. Wednesday, passing through the Gateway of India — a massive archway on the Mumbai waterfront built during British colonial rule.
They focused on the kind of "soft targets" that security experts have long cited as being vulnerable around the world: two luxury hotels, a cafe, a train station, a hospital and the headquarters of a Jewish group, among others.
In the most dramatic of the counterstrikes Friday morning, masked Indian commandos rappelled from a helicopter to the rooftop of the Chabad Lubavitch Jewish center as snipers laid down cover fire.
For nearly 12 hours, explosions and gunfire erupted from the five-story building as the commandos fought their way downward, while thousands of people gathered behind barricades in the streets to watch.
The assault blew huge holes in the center, and, at one point, Indian forces fired a rocket at the building.
Soon after, elated commandos ran outside with their rifles raised over their heads in a sign of triumph.
But inside the Chabad House was a scene of tragedy.
Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak told Israel's Channel 1 TV that the bodies of three women and three men were found at the center. Some of the victims had been bound, Barak said. "All in all, it was a difficult spectacle," he said.
Local media reports, quoting top military officials, said two gunmen were found dead in the building.
Chabad Lubavitch is an ultra-Orthodox Jewish group that runs outreach centers in far-flung areas of the globe. The center in Mumbai served as a synagogue and cultural center for crowds of Israeli tourists and the small local Jewish community, the group said.
Rabbi Zalman Shmotkin, a spokesman for the Chabad Lubavitch movement, said the dead Americans at the Jewish center were Holtzberg; Bentzion Chroman, an Israeli with dual U.S. citizenship; and Leibish Teitlebaum, an American from Brooklyn. Holtzberg's wife was an Israeli citizen.
Two other U.S. victims of the attack, from a Virginia community that promotes a form of meditation, were identified Friday as Alan Scherr, 58, and daughter Naomi, 13, of Faber, Va. They were killed in a cafe Wednesday night at the Oberoi, said Bobbie Garvey, a spokeswoman for the Synchronicity Foundation.
"There are still Americans at risk on the ground and we want to be very, very careful with any facts," said U.S. State Department spokesman Gordon Duguid.
The other dead were from Australia, France, Italy, Canada, Japan, Germany, Singapore and a dual British-Cypriot citizen.
By Friday evening, at least nine gunmen had been killed, one had been arrested and as many as six were still in the hotel, said R. Patil, a top official in Maharashtra state, of which Mumbai is the capital.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh blamed "external forces" for the violence — a phrase sometimes used to refer to Pakistani militants, whom Indian authorities often blame for attacks.
On Friday, India's foreign minister Pranab Mukherjee told reporters in the western city of Jodhpur that "preliminary information" indicated that "some elements in Pakistan are responsible for Mumbai terror attacks."
"Proof cannot be disclosed at this time," he said, adding that Pakistan had assured New Delhi it would not allow its territory to be used for attacks against India.
Earlier Friday, Pakistan's Defense Minister Ahmed Mukhtar, in Islamabad, denied involvement by his country: "I will say in very categoric terms that Pakistan is not involved in these gory incidents."
Sitaram Sharma, who runs a street stall, saw that horror up close.
"I've lived in Mumbai for 50 years and never seen anything like it," Sharma said still visibly shaken hours after the bloodshed.
Sharma saw two young men in T-shirts and jeans stride past his stall and open fire with assault rifles into a sidewalk cafe filled with Western tourists.
The attacks began at about 9:20 p.m. with shooters spraying gunfire across the Chhatrapati Shivaji railroad station, one of the world's busiest terminals. For the next two hours, there was an attack roughly every 15 minutes — at the Jewish center, a tourist restaurant, one hotel, then another, and two attacks on hospitals. There were 10 targets in all.
The gunmen were well-prepared, apparently scouting some targets ahead of time and carrying large bags of almonds to keep up their energy.
"This is going to be our future — the Indian state fighting terrorists," said Suba Chandran, deputy director of the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies in the Indian capital, New Delhi. "It is going to be a long process. There is no easy solution."
Though it was unclear exactly who orchestrated the attacks, they appear to provide further evidence that the main battleground for Islamist extremists is shifting from Iraq, where violence has fallen dramatically this year, to the democracies of South Asia. Militants are inflicting heavy casualties on U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, seizing control of territory from a fragile government in Pakistan and proving they can strike just about anywhere in India.
"The implication for us is that there are bad guys still out there, and we're going to have to learn how to deal with them, because our friends are getting sucked into this big-time," said Rep. Gary Ackerman, D-N.Y., chairman of the House subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia.
In the past six months, terrorists have detonated bombs and killed dozens of people in several cities including New Delhi and the technology and outsourcing center of Bengaluru.
The very factors that in recent years have made India such a compelling success story — its impressive economic growth, its expanding ties with the West, its relatively open society — may be making it an irresistible target.
"India is going to have more problems in the future," said Edward Turzanski, senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. "It's such a large target of opportunity."
President Bush called India's prime minister Thursday from Camp David to express "solidarity with the people of India," White House press secretary Dana Perino said. President-elect Barack Obama, spending Thanksgiving in Chicago with his family, received an intelligence briefing and spoke by phone with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
The group that claimed responsibility for the attacks in an e-mail message to Indian news media — Deccan Mujahedin — was largely unknown to terrorism experts, who are divided over who its members are and where they come from.
Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network has established a refuge in the mountains along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan. Indian officials often accuse Pakistan's military spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), of orchestrating terrorist attacks inside India, particularly in the disputed region of Kashmir.
The two nuclear-armed countries almost went to war after Pakistani-backed Islamist militants attacked the Indian Parliament in December 2001, killing 12 people. After the Mumbai attacks Wednesday, Pakistan was quick to condemn the terrorists.
Christine Fair, South Asia analyst for RAND Corp., a think tank, suspects that the Mumbai terrorists are homegrown militants, bearing grievances over the way India's 140 million Muslims are treated by the Hindu majority. "This isn't India's 9/11," she said. "This is India's Oklahoma City."
Namrata Goswami, associate fellow at the Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses in New Delhi, says the attackers are domestic terrorists who sought to impress Islamist militants around the world.
"They want to establish some kind of linkage with al-Qaeda," she said. "But I don't believe it is there. The motive is very, very clear. This outfit wants to attract sponsors abroad. There's a lot of money in it."
Goswami said Indian Muslims bear plenty of grievances. They lag economically. And they have been targeted by Hindu extremists; hundreds of Muslims died, for instance, in communal riots in the Indian state Gujarat in 2002.
Other analysts, such as Sajjan Gohel, director of international security for the Asia-Pacific Foundation in London, see the attacks as part of a broader struggle to foment holy war against the West and its allies. "There could be an indigenous element," Gohel said, "but there are always transnational links, normally leading back to al-Qaeda and company in Pakistan."
Al-Qaeda has suffered heavy losses this year in Iraq, where Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari told Reuters on Thursday that the war against the militant group was in its "final stages." U.S. military commanders, however, have warned that al-Qaeda is shifting operatives back to the Pakistani-Afghan border region, and it wants to show it is still capable of spectacular attacks.
"I would be stunned if (the Mumbai attacks) were not very heavily based in Pakistan," Turzanski said.
Whoever the attackers were, they caught Indian security forces unprepared. "Till now, we were greeting with glee Pakistan's incompetence in dealing with terrorism," Bahukutumbi Raman, former head of counterterrorism for India's intelligence agency, wrote on his blog after the Mumbai attacks. "We can no longer do so. We have become as clueless as Pakistan."
The killing began at Cafe Leopold, a watering hole for Western tourists who come to unwind in a dining room decorated with a picture of Elvis Presley.
Sharma, the street salesman, said he thought he heard the pop of firecrackers left over from the recent Diwali festival. They were gunshots. He saw people running and screaming. Then he spotted two gunmen picking off patrons in the cafe.
Five minutes later, the terrorists stormed the nearby Nariman House, owned by the ultra-Orthodox Jewish group Chabad-Lubavitch. Three people — including the toddler son of Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg — walked out.
The attackers moved onto the majestic Victorian-style Chhatrapati Shivaji train station, mowing down commuters with Kalashnikov assault rifles.
At 10 p.m. Wednesday, gunmen barged into the Oberoi luxury hotel through different doors.
Madhur Kapur was enjoying dinner with her banker husband when a lone terrorist carrying a machine gun barged into the hotel's Kandahar restaurant and told everyone to freeze.
Instead, chaos ensued. Kapur fled down a fire escape and made it downstairs to the swimming pool, where Indian security forces helped her to safety. She hasn't seen her husband since.
Since 9/11, security experts have been divided over the possibility of similar attacks in the U.S.
The unprecedented nature of the attacks in Mumbai made the potential fallout that much harder to gauge.
Geopolitical research firm Stratfor noted previous attacks in India appeared designed to stoke religious violence. "As opposed to trying to rile up extremist elements in India's Hindu and Muslim communities, the attacks in Mumbai are going after the country's tourism industry, spreading fear — thereby hitting at India's economic lifelines."
Then again, India has largely avoided massive Hindu-Muslim violence, despite the terrorist provocations.
Train attacks that killed about 200 in Mumbai in July 2006 were "devastating for everyone," said Chandran at the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies. "But we bounced back the next day."
Gohel at the Asia-Pacific Foundation agreed: "India is the world's largest democracy, a vast subcontinent — It has faced many atrocities in the past, and as in the past, it will simply lick its wounds and move on."
Paul Wiseman reported from Hong Kong. Thomas Frank, Richard Wolf and Douglas Stanglin reported from McLean, Va. Contributing: Wire reports.
{Ashok Kamte (42): Additional Commissioner of Police}
Ashok Kamte was an alumni of St Stephen’s College, New Delhi. A national power-lifting champion, Kamte hailed from a family of policemen and armymen.
He had an encyclopaedic knowledge of weapons, explosives and unarmed combat, Kamte was summoned late on Wednesday night to deal with terrorists holed up near Metro Cinema, where he was gunned down.
“We have lost the bravest officer in the entire Maharashtra police force,” said Additional Director General of Police Arup Patnaik.
Kamte, a 1989 batch IPS officer, was one of the brightest. Twice, he was sent on UN peace missions, in Bosnia for a year (1998-99) and later in Somalia.
An HT correspondent spoke to him on his return from Bosnia. Kamte said he was thrilled to meet policemen from other countries but said it was not as exciting being a “soldier without an enemy” as a peacekeeper.
“I want to be in real combat situations,” he said. The much-loved former police commissioner of Solapur also served as superintendent of police in Naxal-infested Gadchiroli.
There are 10 pages set up by fans on Orkut, with comments from over 400 people, most of them ruing the fact that he could not continue as their police chief forever.
Daring and efficient as they were, Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) chief Hemant Karkare, Additional Commissioner of Police (North East) Ashok Kamte and high-profile encounter specialist Vijay Salaskar were among those who died a hero's death while fighting terrorists in Mumbai.
Karkare was recently under attack of Right-wing parties and organizations for the investigations into the September 29 Malegaon blast probe, which has been engineered by fanatic Hindu fundamentalists. An officer of the 1982-batch of IPS, he was a Deputy Commissioner of Police in Mumbai before being deputed to the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW), the external intelligence agency.
As R&AW officer, he was posted in Europe, he was Counsellor, Permanent Mission of the United Nations in Vienna, where is work was excellent and still recognized. On his return to parent cadre, he was made Joint Commissioner of Police (Administration) in Mumbai before being transferred to the ATS as a Special Inspector General of Police.
So far, 14 policemen were reported dead and nearly 25 others were injured. Among those injured is Additional Commissioner of Police (Central) Sadanand Date. Incidentally, the Pune ATS on November 26 reportedly received phone calls threatening to blow up the residence of Karkare within a couple of days following his investigations into the Malegaon blast. A cool-headed officer, he was a well read man – and was a true officer and a gentleman. The last television visuals of the 54year-old officer showed him in a light blue shirt and dark trousers surrounded by uniformed policemen armed with firearms and walkie-talkies. Karkare laid down his life near the Cama Hospital area.
Born and brought up in Nagpur, Karkare graduated from the Visveswaraiya Regional College of Engineering in 1975 and took up a few jobs in private sector before his selection in the IPS. He earned the reputation as a competent and upright officer during his stints in Thane, Nanded and Akola. During his posting as superintendent of police in Vidarbha's Chandrapur district, people saw a fascinating facet of Karkare's personality – he created as many as 150 beautiful wood sculptures in the forested area. There would always be some great wood carvings inside his office.
At the same time, Kamte too was a brilliant officer. Having undergone special training for negotiating hostage situations, Kamte was chosen to tackle one of the worst crisis faced by the financial capital of the country. He was a Deputy Commissioner of Police in Mumbai and has also done a stint with the United Nations. He was a DCP in Solapur also. He laid down his life near Metro Cinema.
On the other hand, Salaskar to fell to the bullets of agents of terror near the Metro Cinema. Salaskar, a dare-devil officer of the rank of Senior Inspector of Police currently headed the Anti-Extortion Cell. He has so far killed over 70 criminals in his career and is an officer of the famous 1983-batch of cops. One of his famous kills include dreaded underworld don Amar Naik alias Ravan.
7 TERRORISTS SHOT DEAD IN GUN BATTLES >> 1 TERRORISTS HELD >> 9 SUSPECTS IN SECURITY DRAGNET >> NARIMAN HOUSE SIEGE STILL ON >> NUMBER OF HOSTAGES NOT KNOWN
Indian intelligence agencies believe the Mumbai terror attacks was planned by Pakistan's ISI to discredit Pakistan foreign minister Shah Mehmood Quereshi while he is visiting India.
A top intelligence official said on Thursday that this attack was a "lesson to teach Quereshi, who has described the disbanding of the ISI's political wing as a positive development".
The terror attacks while Quereshi discussed cooperation between New Delhi and Is lamabad with external affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee was also a message by the ISI that the army still controlled politics in Pakistan though a democratically elected government is in place, he analysed.
He said that after Pakistani government was told by the U.S. to reign in the ISI and stop aiding the Taliban in Afghanistan, the directorate general of counter intelligence in the ISI focussed all its resources on India as over the last few years it was failing in the Kashmir valley.
He pointed out that ISI chief Lt Gen Ahmed Shuja Pasha had focused on counter-terrorism during his previous assignment as the director general of military operations and his top priority in his new office would be "spread terror in India in connivance with Bangladesh's intelligence agencies".
The Mumbai terror attacks have been fully sponsored by the ISI's CI wing as investigations revealed two boatfuls of weapons and more than 20 Laskar-e-Tayiba terrorists most sailed from Karachi to some uninhibited islands near the shores of Mumbai.
Two ships MV Alfa and MV Al Kabeer have been detained by the Indian Navy. These are suspected to have ferried the terrorists from Karachi.
Intelligence officials have also discovered that these LeT men received directions through satellite telephones and also recruited some locals in Mumbai to carry out their terror operations.
"The LeT men were directly under the control of ISI CI wing and we will not be surprised if they have established contacts with Bangladesh-based terror outfit HuJI, which has spread its tentacles among millions of illegal Bangladeshi migrants spread all over India."
bureaus@sakaaltimes.com
Mumbai Fighting Narrows to One Hotel
MUMBAI, India — The standoffs in the Indian commercial capital of Mumbai narrowed to a final running battle between commandos and at least one gunman who was still roaming the charred corridors of a luxury hotel, the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower, but the murderous assault on this city continued to shake the nation and ratchet up tensions with neighboring Pakistan.
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Police watched the Taj Mahal Hotel, set ablaze by terrorists, in Mumbai on Thursday. More Photos »
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All told, police said, more than 150 people, including at least 22 foreigners, were killed in attacks across the city, including a rabbi from Brooklyn and his wife, who had moved to Mumbai to operate a Jewish center. Nine gunmen were slain, the police said, and one was captured alive.
American intelligence and counterterrorism officials said Friday there was mounting evidence that a Pakistani militant group — one long involved in the conflict with India over in the disputed territory of Kashmir — was responsible for the deadly attacks on Mumbai.
After two days of fighting, Indian security forces killed the attackers in one luxury hotel in the city known as the Oberoi Trident, freeing civilians trapped inside. Other units killed the gunmen occupying the headquarters of the Jewish center.
The slain rabbi, Gavriel Holtzberg, who held dual American and Israeli citizenship, and his wife, Rivka, an Israeli citizen, were among at least five hostages who were killed by attackers at the Jewish center, Nariman House. Another was Rabbi Leibish Teitelbaum, a Brooklyn native who moved to Jerusalem several years ago, according to a statement by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. Israeli radio reported that a sixth body had been found at the center as well.
Also among the dead were two Americans, a 58-year-old man and his 13-year-old daughter, members of a spiritual community visiting from Virginia, who died in the Oberoi hotel. Two more Americans and two Canadians, traveling as part of the same retreat, were injured.
Two French nationals, the founder of a French lingerie line and her husband, were also among those killed in the violence in the city, according to Agence France-Presse.
Shortly before night settled over Mumbai, the police said 30 bodies were discovered in the Oberoi hotel, where the police had finally taken control and many guests and employees were evacuated earlier on Friday. The national security guard said it found two AK-47’s, a 9 millimeter pistol and some grenades inside the hotel; two gunmen were killed inside.
But the army’s operation at the second luxury hotel, the Taj, was only entering its “final phase,” according to the Indian military, with commandos battling at least one terrorist inside who was moving between two floors of the hotel, including an area that had been a dance floor for weddings and other parties. The army said two other gunmen had been killed overnight in the Taj. Later, commandos were seen rushing through the front door of the hotel, in what appeared to be another major assault to dislodge the militants.
Loud explosions and gun battles raged inside the Taj for most of the afternoon and evening. Indian commandos said the attackers at the hotels were well-trained and remorseless, with one attacker carrying a backpack packed with hundreds of rounds of ammunition, and they seemed to know the buildings’ layout better than the security forces, indicating a high degree of preparation and sophistication.
The leader of a commando unit involved in a gun battle Thursday morning inside the Taj said during a news conference on Friday that he had seen a dozen dead bodies in one of the rooms.
His team also discovered a gunman’s backpack, which contained dried fruit, 400 rounds of AK-47 ammunition, four grenades, Indian and American money, and seven credit cards from some of the world’s leading banks. They pack also had a national identity card from the island of Mauritius, off Africa’s southeastern coast.
The attackers were “very, very familiar with the layout of the hotel,” said the commander, who disguised his face with a scarf and tinted glasses. He said the militants, who appeared to be under 30 years old, were “determined” and “remorseless.”
The Indian media focused on the possible involvement of the Pakistani guerrilla group, Lashkar-e-Taiba, which has been linked to Pakistani intelligence.
As the State Department reported that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had called President-elect Obama twice to brief him on the attacks, American intelligence and counterterrorism officials said Friday there was mounting evidence pointing to the involvement of Lashkar, or possibly another Pakistani group focused on Kashmir, Jaish-e-Muhammad.
The American officials cautioned that they had reached no hard conclusions about who was responsible, or how it was planned and carried out. An F.B.I. team has been sent to Mumbai to assist with the forensic investigation of the attacks.
In a statement, President Bush said he was saddened by the American deaths.
Amid an atmosphere of recrimination between political parties within India, a senior Hindu nationalist leader, L.K. Advani, said the Indian security services had become “preoccupied” with Hindu terrorists and missed threats from Islamists. The Indian foreign minister, Pranab Mukherjee, said early evidence explicitly pointed to Pakistan’s involvement.
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"Preliminary evidence, prima facie evidence, indicates elements with links to Pakistan are involved," Mr. Mukherjee told reporters in New Delhi.
An Indian official said one assailant had been captured alive and was a Pakistani citizen. The assertion, by R.R. Patil, the home affairs minister of Maharashtra State, where Mumbai is located, could further increase tension between India and Pakistan, both nuclear-armed states which have fought wars in the past.
In London, officials said they were unable to confirm reports in a British newspaper that some of the attackers had British passports. Holding British passports is relatively common among people with ties to former colonies, but other officials said such a link was unlikely.
Pockets of resistance remained. In the Oberoi, some guests were still barricaded in their rooms Friday afternoon as security forces reasserted control of the hotel, and they were watching events outside on television news channels. But police and military officers did not explain why the operation to flush out a handful of assailants in the Taj hotel and the Jewish community center had taken so long.
At the Jewish center, commandos slid down ropes from a hovering Army helicopter on Friday morning as they stormed the building. The blue-uniformed troopers landed on the roof and soon made their way inside the center, home to the Hasidic Jewish group Chabad-Lubavitch, and a gun battle raged.
Late in the day, commandos in black uniforms and body armor moved into buildings around the center, Nariman House, relieving commandos in blue or black uniforms who had been in action all day. For the first time, a van with six medics in surgical gowns and masks parked nearby.
The main success of the day for the authorities came at the Oberoi hotel where police said that 93 foreigners — some of them wearing Air France and Lufthansa uniforms — had been rescued on Friday. Exhausted survivors offered harrowing accounts of their ordeal, trapped on the upper floors of the high-rise hotel occupied on lower floors by gunmen.
In a televised speech Thursday, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh blamed forces “based outside this country” in a thinly veiled accusation that Pakistan was involved. A day later, India’s foreign minister Pranab Mukherjee was quoted by the Press Trust of India as saying that, according to preliminary reports, “some elements in Pakistan are responsible.”
But Pakistan seemed anxious to defuse the mounting crisis in relations with its neighbor. Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said India and Pakistan should join hands to defeat a common enemy, and urged New Delhi not to play politics over the attacks in Mumbai, Reuters reported.
“Do not bring politics into this issue,” the Pakistani foreign minister told reporters in the Indian town of Ajmer during a four-day visit to India. “This is a collective issue. We are facing a common enemy and we should join hands to defeat the enemy.”
President Asif Ali Zardari called Mr. Singh, Reuters reported, to say he was “appalled and shocked” by the terrorist attacks. “Non-state actors wanted to force upon the governments their own agenda, but they must not be allowed to succeed,” he said.
Mumbai Mourns After Deadly Terror Attack
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Updated Nov.28,2008 07:54 KST
Mumbai Mourns After Deadly Terror Attack
Schoolchildren pay tribute to the victims of the Mumbai terrorist attacks in Ahmadabad, Nov. 27, 2008.
Police in Mumbai continue sifting through the wreckage left by the deadly terror attack that left more than 100 people dead and hundreds of others injured. Shocked residents and tourists at the city's luxury hotels watched in horror as the scene unfolded, many of them trapped by the fighting between police and the gunmen. Raymond Thibodeaux has this report from Mumbai.
It was a day of funerals for many of those killed in one of the city's most brazen terrorist attacks. One funeral was for Shashank Shinde, a senior police inspector killed by a gunman at the city's Central Railway Station early Wednesday night. He is one of at least 12 police officers killed in the terror attacks, one of the deadliest days for Mumbai's police force.
Sanjive Piwandakar was a close friend of the slain officer.
"I'm feeling very … I can't express it. I am angry and I have lost one of my closest friends. To me he was like a godfather," he said
The funeral procession leads down a normally busy street. Like Piwandakar, the city of Mumbai appears to be in a state of shock after a night of violence. The attackers targeted the symbols of modern India. Its posh hotels, a café, and a busy train station where there are usually high concentrations of foreigners.
The wave of attacks that began Wednesday night have virtually shut down much of the city. Now, the streets are relatively empty. Many businesses are closed for the day. Mumbai, known as the Maximum City, partly for its constant rush of traffic and noise, is mostly quiet.
Police in flak jackets are patrolling the districts hit by the violence.
Indian commandos take positions close to where Jewish families have been taken hostage in Mumbai, Nov. 27, 2008.
Crowds gathered near a Jewish outreach center in the heart of Mumbai early Thursday, where police commandos and Indian army troops worked to end a hostage crisis in which at least three gunmen were holding captive about six Israeli tourists.
Nearby is the crumpled wreckage of several cars and motorcycles from grenade attacks earlier in the night.
Sanjay Kokate, 35, is a local resident. He was one of the first eyewitnesses as attackers took control of the Jewish outreach center late Wednesday night. He said gunmen opened-fire into a nearby building, killing several residents.
"After one hour or so the cops came. But after that they [the gunmen] kept firing. They fired into the opposite building. So some people in that building died. An old woman and some children. We took out some of the bodies at night," he said.
Little is known about the Deccan Mujahideen, the group that has taken responsibility for the attacks. Some experts said they are linked to the Indian Mujahideen, an Islamist terror group that has claimed responsibility for several recent attacks against civilians in India.
V.N. Athawalla is a police commander posted at the J.J. Hospital in central Mumbai, where many of the injured were taken.
He said these attacks were some of the most violent he's seen in Mumbai. Shooting and bomb blasts have happened before, but this was groups of terrorists firing at people in the streets. They were firing indiscriminately, trying to kill as many people as they could. This hasn't been seen in Mumbai before, he said.
India has been rocked by several terrorist attacks in recent months.
For now, many here worry that anger might set in once the shock of the attacks wears off. The possibility of communal violence is on the minds of many people across the country.
But as one man at Shinde's funeral said: "The way to honor those who were killed in the attacks is to try to carry on normally."
Jewish hostages killed as British terrorists linked to Bombay attacks
Jeremy Page and Rhys Blakely, Bombay, and Philippe Naughton, London
Israel: rescue operation badly planned | Graphic: how terror spread | They came to kill and maim | Survivors' tales | Analysis: Bronwen Maddox | Andreas Liveras shot dead | The specialist in 'encounter killings' | Was al-Qaeda was pulling the strings? | Opinion: Maria Misra | Leading article: Massacre in Bombay | Markets: India's shares dive
Updated at 16.01 GMT (21.31 Bombay)
At least five Jewish hostages held by Islamic terrorists in a Bombay appartment block have been killed, an Israeli diplomat has said, as it emerged that two of the attackers in India's commercial capital may have been British-born Pakistanis.
"Five bodies of hostages have been found. They are Israeli nationals," Eli Belotsercovsky, deputy chief of mission at the Israeli embassy in New Delhi, told the AFP news agency.
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* GRAPHIC: how the terrorists spread fear
After a day of drama during which Indian commandos blasted their way through the six-storey block to rescue an unknown number of hostages at a Jewish outreach centre, it was unclear whether any had survived.
An Israeli rescue service which had sent a mission to help with the siege at the Chavad Lubavitch centre said that it thought all the hostages had been killed. "Apparently the hostages did not remain alive," the Zaka service said in a brief statement, quoting its staff in Bombay. It did not identify the hostages or say how many may have died.
The death toll from the co-ordinated terror attacks today reached at least 143, seven of them foreign, including one Briton.
The Chief Minister of Maharashtra state, Vilasrao Deshmukh, said today that two British-born Pakistanis were among eight gunmen arrested by Indian authorities.
Both Gordon Brown and David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, played down the claim but without denying it outright. "It's too early to say whether any of them are British," Mr Miliband said.
The Times witnessed an Indian air force helicopter dropping no less than 17 commandos onto the roof of the block, Nariman House, at dawn this morning. Throughout the day, the building was rocked by gunfire and explosions as the commandos fought to gain control of the block floor by floor and reach the Jewish centre.
When commandos began to emerge from the building this evening, crowds waiting in the street outside began to celebrate the end of the siege - until they were warned that the site had not yet been fully secured.
Hundreds of people flooded into the streets surrounding the centre, cheering and applauding commando units who emerged from the building with their assault rifles raised. A military spokesman with a loud hailer appealed for the crowds to move back, saying the operation was not "fully over". Hasan Gafoor, the Bombay police chief, said that security personnel were still moving through the building "floor by floor, checking that everything is all right".
Indian special forces, meanwhile, gave their first account of the mission to liberate the Taj Mahal Palace, one of two luxury hotels seized by the terrorists. They described a sequence of running battles with gunmen in corridors and rooms strewn with dead bodies and seriously injured guests - battles which appeared to be coming to a climactic end this evening as the last one or two militants hung on against the security forces.
But officials claimed success in ending a siege of the luxury Oberoi hotel, where as many as 30 people had been held hostage. Commandos killed two gunmen as they seized control of the tower today.
"The hotel is under our control," Mr Dutt said. He said that 24 bodies had been recovered from the hotel, pushing the confirmed death toll from the coordinated attacks up to 143.
In New Delhi, a Government minister explicitly pointed the finger at Pakistan for the first time. "Preliminary evidence, prima facie evidence, indicates elements with links to Pakistan are involved," Pranab Mukherjee, the Foreign Minister, told a press conference. In Bombay, officials said that one of the militants arrested was a Pakistani national.
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* Bombay terror: mystery of missing foreign dead
* Israelis - India rescue efforts badly planned
* India points the finger at Pakistan
Multimedia
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* GRAPHIC: how the terrorists spread fear
The Pakistani Foreign Minister, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, responded with a call to India not to play politics with the Bombay attacks. "Do not bring politics into this issue. This is a collective issue. We are facing a common enemy and we should join hands to defeat the enemy," he said during a visit to the Indian town of Ajmer, which hosts an important Islamic shrine.
Nevertheless, Islamabad agreed to an Indian request to send the head of its military intelligence service, the ISI, to India to share information on the attacks.
The investigation into the al-Qaeda-style terror attacks is focusing on a fishing vessel that was found off the city's coast with a dead body aboard. It is thought that the vessel was used by the terrorists before they climbed aboard a smaller boat to land at Colaba, the tourist area in southern Bombay where the gunmen's targets are clustered.
The nationality of the dead man found on the boat is unknown, but one theory being pushed by many inside India's intelligence apparatus is that the boat's origin was Karachi, in Pakistan.
The gunmen were well trained and well prepared, apparently scouting targets ahead of time and carrying large bags of almonds and dried fruit to keep up their energy.
"It’s obvious they were trained somewhere ... Not everyone can handle the AK series of weapons or throw grenades like that," a senior office of India’s Marine Commando unit told reporters, his face wrapped in a black mask to protect his identity, told reporters today.
"These terrorists were very well informed regarding the layout of the hotel. In no time they vanished and were gone elsewhere. The kept moving around the hotel," the officer said.
Bags belonging to the terrorists contained hundreds of rounds of ammunition and grenades were recovered. A Mauritian national Id card, apparently that of one of the gunmen, was also found, together with seven credit cards and more than US$1,000 in cash.
The officer said that the Taj had been filled with terrified civilians, making it very difficult for the commandos to fire on the gunmen. "To try and avoid civilian casualties we had to be so much more careful," he said. "Bodies were strewn all over the place, and there was blood everywhere."
The commando added: "They were the kind of people with no remorse - anybody and whomsoever came in front of them they fired."
Struggling for Control in the Mumbai War Zone
Struggling for Control in the Mumbai War Zone
By Sascha Zastiral in Mumbai
Since Wednesday evening, war has been raging in downtown Mumbai. Even as a number of hostages have been freed, ongoing violence has the population wary and afraid. And nobody knows how it will end.
In the southern part of India's economic center Mumbai, heavily armed soldiers and police are standing on every corner. Sharpshooters can be seen on the roofs and helicopters circle overhead. The city quarter is called Colaba, and it is here, in the southernmost tip of the city, where attackers struck on Wednesday night. Since then, they have largely held the metropolis of 18 million in their sway. More than 140 people have lost their lives in the 10 coordinated attacks; more than 400 have been injured.
Just days ago, Colaba was still a relaxed café and restaurant quarter, a favorite in Mumbai, India's most progressive city. Now, it is a war zone.
Police cars speed down the Colaba Causeway right through the center of the quarter, blue lights flashing. They come to a stop in front of the Nariman House. On Thursday morning, hours after the first attacks, terrorists forced their way into the house, which houses the Jewish Chad Lubavitch center, and took a number of hostages. On Friday, a rabbi, his wife and two Israelis remained in the hands of the attackers for much of the day.
Police have cordoned off the entire area. Hundreds of onlookers stand at the barricades set up by the authorities, craning their necks to get a look at the house. Journalists and photographers from across the globe shove their way among them. Then, a ripple of suspense makes its way through the crowds: helicopters begin circling over the building. At least seven heavily armed men in black rappel onto the roof of the culture center. They are from the "Black Cats," a highly specialized police unit.
Bullet-Proof Vests
Not long later, the sound of machine gun fire echoes out of the building. Then, just before noon local time, sounds of a large explosion roll over the quarter. Then more shots. Within a half an hour, six further explosions can be heard from inside the house, and yet more gunfire. The police, all in bullet-proof vests, become nervous -- two of them impatiently begin forcing the crowd of onlookers further away. Quiet soon returns. Later on Friday, it was reported that police had gained full control of the building. A security official told Indian television that the commandos had killed two militants and found two other bodies, which appear to be the hostages.
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While the battle was continuing at Nariman House on Friday, panic has begun to spread at the city's central station. Rumors have begun circulating that, just as on Wednesday evening, attackers have fired indiscriminately into crowds of bystanders. Police are quick to deny the reports, saying that three armed men had been arrested at a nearby hospital. But the streets empty out immediately, with people seeking safety in their homes.
Fear has gripped the city. The joie de vivre for which the city is well known has completely evaporated.
The area around the Trident Hotel, formerly known as the Oberoi, has been cordoned off. Hundreds have collected near a side entrance to the building, among them Steven de Souza. De Souza is from the western Indian state of Goa, just down the coast from Mumbai. The 31-year-old with curly dark hair has worked in Mumbai for the last 10 years; he wears a dark blue T-shirt, his arms are crossed tensely.
"I really don't know if friends of mine are still inside, or if they are still alive," he says. He explains that he worked at the luxury hotel for three years a number of years ago. And he reports that, here too, special forces had rappelled down onto the building from hovering helicopters earlier in the day. "People came to the hotel because they were looking for safety," De Souza says. "It is awful what has happened."
Fear on Their Faces
Suddenly, there is pushing and shoving at the door. Police in battle dress push the crowd to the side and a hotel worker leads a man out of the hotel. He looks to be around 60 years old, is wearing a light blue shirt, glasses and is bald. "I have nothing to say," he says, in what sounds like a British accent, as he passes. "I was in my room the entire time." He is then bundled into a waiting car and driven away.
It has been 36 hours since attackers forced their way into the hotel. The armed invaders took a number of hostages -- hundreds of other hotel guests were trapped in their rooms. On Thursday night, officials shut off power to the hotel so that the terrorists could no longer follow events elsewhere in the city on the television.
Where the attacks took place.
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Where the attacks took place.
A bus drives up to the hotel. More and more people climb in, many of them clearly Westerners. The police on Friday freed nearly 100 men and women from their rooms -- they look exhausted, fear still written across their faces.
Ahmed Kahn sits in his taxi at a nearby street corner. Khan is in his early 40s, wears a long, graying beard and henna-dyed red hair -- and he is Muslim. "This is so wrong," he says in Urdu, holding back his tears. "It simply can't be."
Like many other Muslims in the city, Khan comes from the poor state of Uttar Pradesh in northern India. He came to Mumbai, he says, to work and to "provide his children with a better future." All the Muslims he knows, he says, are completely shocked by the attacks. "Islam is supposed to bring peace," he says. "But what these young men have done here is 'Haram'" -- forbidden. "Spilling blood is a sin."
A few hours later, the police reported that the operation in the Trident was over. 26 bodies were found in the lobby and the hallways of the hotel. Here at least, the nightmare had finally come to an end.
Shooting People in the Street
But, a paralyzing silence lies over the center of Colaba. All the businesses are closed -- even the countless roving salesmen have stopped hawking their wares. The famed Leopold restaurant has also lowered its shutters. Glass shards lie on the sidewalk. Pools of blood have collected on the dusty pavement. A sharp rotting odor makes its way through the air vents in the shutters. Inside the restaurant, in the dark, plates with food on them still sit on the tables.
One can't help but be astonished by the eyewitness reports about what happened here on Wednesday around 9:30 p.m. Two young men are said to have entered the restaurant -- one of the city's most popular among foreigners and tourists -- to have an evening meal. After paying the bill, they stood up and exited the restaurant onto the street. There, they pulled machine guns out of their bags and began shooting people in the street and the restaurant. They then ran away. At this time, many of the observers who watched in shock thought they were dealing with an act of mafia payback, of the sort that had plagued the city not so long ago.
By Sascha Zastiral in Mumbai
Part 2: Boats Full of Terrorists
At about the same time, two dozen accomplices docked a speedboat in a fishing port near the Trident and Oberoi hotels and entered the city bearing heavy baggage. Later the police secured the boat and found within it a dead body that has yet to be identified. Together with the other incidents, it had now become clear: these weren't incidents emerging from the city's underworld of organized crime; India was experiencing perhaps the most consequential terror attack of its history.
In the world famous Taj Mahal Hotel, the worst is not yet over. Many gawkers have gathered here to stare, not comprehending the blaze that has overtaken the historical building with its towers and domes. Smoke is still escaping from the luxury hotel. Fires have broken out as a result of the fighting between the attackers and the security services. Some of the rooms have been entirely blackened by soot. Dozens of fire fighters, standing directly next to the building, can't put out the blaze. The risk of getting shot by the terrorists is too high.
Within the hotel, the army has already secured 30 dead bodies, says the military spokesman. That the firefights continue is due to the fact that the terrorists had a very good understanding of the building's layout. The wallet of one of the attacker's has been recovered. Within it is a passport belonging to a citizen of Mauritius, $1,200 in American currency and 6,000 Indian rupees.
Media and government officials are very involved in deciding where to place blame for the attacks. One Indian daily newspaper claims to have determined that the terrorists must have originally departed on a bigger boat from the Pakistani city of Karachi with the intention of invading Indian territory. The "mother ship" would have then released into the water the speedboat that went on to fatally attack India's financial capital. The newspaper claims that the terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba ("Army of the Pure") was behind the attacks.
Battle rages for Mumbai hostages
By David Loyn
BBC News, Delhi
PM Singh addresses the nation after the attacks 27/11/2008
PM Singh came close to threatening retaliation against Pakistan
In India the opposition BJP have used the opportunity of the Mumbai violence to put pressure on the government.
Front page newspaper adverts appeared on Friday even while shooting was still going on, saying the incident shows that the Congress government is 'unwilling and incapable' of dealing with terrorism.
With the country in the middle of crucial state elections which could determine the timing of the next general election, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is facing intense scrutiny.
Following the attacks, he has been seen visiting the injured in hospital, alongside Congress party president Sonia Gandhi.
He has already promised to strengthen anti-terrorist laws, and in a TV address came close to threatening retaliation against Pakistan if their involvement in the attacks can be proved.
"We will take up strongly with our neighbours that the use of their territory for launching attacks on us will not be tolerated, and that there would be a cost if suitable measures are not taken by them," Mr Singh said.
Recent overtures
The Indian Navy has seized two Pakistani merchant ships and is investigating the possibility that they dropped off the militants who then came ashore in fast boats.
Shah Mahmoud Qureshi on a visit to India 27/11/2008
Pakistani FM Qureshi vowed to cooperate with the Indian investigation
They are linking this with the discovery of a trawler, found abandoned off the Indian coastline on Thursday with its captain dead.
Pakistan's denials of involvement have been clear and unambiguous.
The Pakistani ambassador to the US, Hussein Haqqani told the BBC that his country had suffered from terrorism just as much as India had, and offered every assistance in bringing the attackers to justice.
Analysts in Pakistan have been pointing instead to the possibility that these militants are home-grown Indian extremists, operating without external support.
The incident comes just as the first democratic government in Pakistan since the coup in 1999 has made overtures for better relations with India.
For the first time, President Asif Ali Zardari made the quite unexpected unilateral offer to make no first use of nuclear weapons in any conflict.
On Tuesday, home affairs ministers from the two countries met in Islamabad, and Pakistan's foreign minister Shah Mahmoud Qureshi is by chance currently visiting India.
Proxy attacks
Such contacts are opposed by significant parts of the Pakistani army and particularly its intelligence service, the ISI, who have in the past inspired terrorist attacks in India to stop just such an improvement in relations between the two countries.
Indian newspaper front pages 28/11/2008
Indian papers said the government had failed to protect its citizens
Feeling encircled - with India to their east allied with Afghanistan to their west - analysts believe they have taken the option of encouraging attacks by proxies, Islamists inspired to wage unconventional war.
An armed assault by militants on the Indian parliament in 2001 led to a significant worsening in relations that escalated into troops on both sides being sent to confront each other across their shared border.
A further possibility though is that this attack was carried out from Pakistan, but beyond the control either of Pakistan's democratic government or its military establishment.
The war in Afghanistan has led to a further radicalisation of politics in Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province, where a "Pakistani Taleban" have emerged.
Allied with foreign fighters from al-Qaeda, they have both the financial power and political will to carry out attacks of the sort seen in Mumbai.
BBC News, Delhi
PM Singh addresses the nation after the attacks 27/11/2008
PM Singh came close to threatening retaliation against Pakistan
In India the opposition BJP have used the opportunity of the Mumbai violence to put pressure on the government.
Front page newspaper adverts appeared on Friday even while shooting was still going on, saying the incident shows that the Congress government is 'unwilling and incapable' of dealing with terrorism.
With the country in the middle of crucial state elections which could determine the timing of the next general election, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is facing intense scrutiny.
Following the attacks, he has been seen visiting the injured in hospital, alongside Congress party president Sonia Gandhi.
He has already promised to strengthen anti-terrorist laws, and in a TV address came close to threatening retaliation against Pakistan if their involvement in the attacks can be proved.
"We will take up strongly with our neighbours that the use of their territory for launching attacks on us will not be tolerated, and that there would be a cost if suitable measures are not taken by them," Mr Singh said.
Recent overtures
The Indian Navy has seized two Pakistani merchant ships and is investigating the possibility that they dropped off the militants who then came ashore in fast boats.
Shah Mahmoud Qureshi on a visit to India 27/11/2008
Pakistani FM Qureshi vowed to cooperate with the Indian investigation
They are linking this with the discovery of a trawler, found abandoned off the Indian coastline on Thursday with its captain dead.
Pakistan's denials of involvement have been clear and unambiguous.
The Pakistani ambassador to the US, Hussein Haqqani told the BBC that his country had suffered from terrorism just as much as India had, and offered every assistance in bringing the attackers to justice.
Analysts in Pakistan have been pointing instead to the possibility that these militants are home-grown Indian extremists, operating without external support.
The incident comes just as the first democratic government in Pakistan since the coup in 1999 has made overtures for better relations with India.
For the first time, President Asif Ali Zardari made the quite unexpected unilateral offer to make no first use of nuclear weapons in any conflict.
On Tuesday, home affairs ministers from the two countries met in Islamabad, and Pakistan's foreign minister Shah Mahmoud Qureshi is by chance currently visiting India.
Proxy attacks
Such contacts are opposed by significant parts of the Pakistani army and particularly its intelligence service, the ISI, who have in the past inspired terrorist attacks in India to stop just such an improvement in relations between the two countries.
Indian newspaper front pages 28/11/2008
Indian papers said the government had failed to protect its citizens
Feeling encircled - with India to their east allied with Afghanistan to their west - analysts believe they have taken the option of encouraging attacks by proxies, Islamists inspired to wage unconventional war.
An armed assault by militants on the Indian parliament in 2001 led to a significant worsening in relations that escalated into troops on both sides being sent to confront each other across their shared border.
A further possibility though is that this attack was carried out from Pakistan, but beyond the control either of Pakistan's democratic government or its military establishment.
The war in Afghanistan has led to a further radicalisation of politics in Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province, where a "Pakistani Taleban" have emerged.
Allied with foreign fighters from al-Qaeda, they have both the financial power and political will to carry out attacks of the sort seen in Mumbai.
Pakistan to send intelligence chief to India on Mumbai attacks
Pakistan to send intelligence chief to India on Mumbai attacks
www.chinaview.cn 2008-11-28 19:40:12 Print
ISLAMABAD, Nov. 28 (Xinhua) -- Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has accepted a request from his Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh to send the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) chief to India for sharing of information related to the terrorist attacks in Mumbai that left some 130 people dead, according to local press reports.
PM spokesman Zahid Bashir said that Singh had made a request to Gilani, asking him to send the ISI chief to India to "cooperatein the investigation of the Mumbai attacks and for sharing certain information".
Bashir said: "The Pakistani prime minister accepted this offer. The two sides will work out modalities for the visit of the Inter Services Intelligence chief which is expected to take place soon."
Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha was recently appointed chief of the ISI by Pakistan army chief General Parvez Kayani.
This would be the first instance of a chief of Pakistan's spy agency visiting India in connection with the investigation of a terror attack.
Early Friday, Gilani talked with Singh by phone and expressed profound grief over loss of lives in the wake Mumbai terror attacks.
Gilani strongly denounced the acts of terrorism in Mumbai and assured Singh his full cooperation, said the state-run APP news agency.
He added that the Pakistani government and people are with the Indian people in the hours of grief. He said that Pakistan is also a victim of terrorism, and extended his government's full support to jointly combat extremism and terrorism.
The private Geo TV said that Singh told Gilani that India got evidence that all the arms and ammunition were sent by boat to these terrorists from the southern Pakistani port of Karachi.
The Geo TV said that Singh requested Gilani to send the Pakistani intelligence chief to India so that India could exchange some evidence with him.
In his separate talks with Singh by phone, Pakistani President Asia Ali Zardari also condemned the Mumbai attacks.
Zardari offered cooperation in investigation of the terrorist act to India. He said that terrorists were not the followers of any religion and should be eliminated altogether.
www.chinaview.cn 2008-11-28 19:40:12 Print
ISLAMABAD, Nov. 28 (Xinhua) -- Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has accepted a request from his Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh to send the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) chief to India for sharing of information related to the terrorist attacks in Mumbai that left some 130 people dead, according to local press reports.
PM spokesman Zahid Bashir said that Singh had made a request to Gilani, asking him to send the ISI chief to India to "cooperatein the investigation of the Mumbai attacks and for sharing certain information".
Bashir said: "The Pakistani prime minister accepted this offer. The two sides will work out modalities for the visit of the Inter Services Intelligence chief which is expected to take place soon."
Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha was recently appointed chief of the ISI by Pakistan army chief General Parvez Kayani.
This would be the first instance of a chief of Pakistan's spy agency visiting India in connection with the investigation of a terror attack.
Early Friday, Gilani talked with Singh by phone and expressed profound grief over loss of lives in the wake Mumbai terror attacks.
Gilani strongly denounced the acts of terrorism in Mumbai and assured Singh his full cooperation, said the state-run APP news agency.
He added that the Pakistani government and people are with the Indian people in the hours of grief. He said that Pakistan is also a victim of terrorism, and extended his government's full support to jointly combat extremism and terrorism.
The private Geo TV said that Singh told Gilani that India got evidence that all the arms and ammunition were sent by boat to these terrorists from the southern Pakistani port of Karachi.
The Geo TV said that Singh requested Gilani to send the Pakistani intelligence chief to India so that India could exchange some evidence with him.
In his separate talks with Singh by phone, Pakistani President Asia Ali Zardari also condemned the Mumbai attacks.
Zardari offered cooperation in investigation of the terrorist act to India. He said that terrorists were not the followers of any religion and should be eliminated altogether.
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Obama says India's democracy will win over terrorism
WASHINGTON: India’s democracy ''will prove far more resilient than the hateful ideology that led to these attacks'' in Mumbai, US President-elect
Barack Obama said on Wednesday as the world reached out to India in sympathy and support over what American analysts described as “India’s 9/11.”
Both the incumbent Bush administration and Obama and his transition team sent out strong messages of condemnation of the attacks and their backing for India even as they coordinated their response in the transition phase in the United States. President Bush phoned Prime Minister Manmohan Singh from Camp David early on Thursday morning to offer support and US help in investigation. Soon after, an FBI team from Los Angeles, consisting of bomb and forensic experts, left for Mumbai to help in the investigation.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice briefed Obama over the phone as the White House assembled its national security and intelligence chiefs for discussion and analysis and offered India any help it required.
From Chicago, Obama also spoke to India’s ambassador Ronen Sen, to convey that his thoughts and prayers with those affected by “this tragic situation” and brief him about his conversations with Rice.
''These coordinated attacks on innocent civilians demonstrate the grave and urgent threat of terrorism. The US must continue to strengthen our partnerships with India and nations around the world to root out and destroy terrorist networks,'' Obama said in a statement issued through his national security spokesperson, Brooke Anderson.
In comments that extolled India’s institutional strength and was directed against the fundamentalist mindset in the neighbourhood, Obama also predicted the triumph of democracy over the sickening ideology of extremism even as terrorists/mujahideen earned universal disgust over the attack of Indian civilians and foreign nationals.
Audiences in the US remained glued to coverage of the Mumbai massacre more than 24 hours after the carnage began as it got wall-to-wall TV time on a long Thanksgiving holiday weekend.
For administration and security officials, that long weekend
had already been disrupted by a mid-week security alert that spoke of possible terrorist attacks on New York’s Penn Station and other mass transit in the region; but the bloodbath occurred 10,000 miles away in Mumbai’s most famous landmarks.
The involvement of westerners, including Americans, Britons and Israelis as victims and hostages in the ordeal also ensured greater coverage than usual with US experts trying to connect the dots and link the attack to Kashmir and al-Qaida, and its possible repercussions on United States.
In fact, there was little or no surprise over the attacks given both the alert in New York and the prediction by foreign policy experts, including vice-president elect Joe Biden, that Obama could be tested by terrorist attacks early in his presidency.
US analysts mulled over the larger implications of the attack that seemed to also target westerners while suggesting that this was not a localized attack arising from home-grown militancy.
“The apparent focus on killing or capturing foreign businesspeople, specifically US and UK nationals, has never occurred before, suggesting a wider global anti-Western agenda. This stands in contrast to the national issues that appeared to motivate Indian Mujahideen,” Jane’s Intelligence, said in a brief update on the crisis.
In Washington, the US State Department put out a hotline number (1-888-407-4747) to enable US citizens concerned about the wellbeing of friends and family in India to get information and updates. A travel advisory cautioning against travel to India was expected later in the day.
However, the Indian government did itself little credit with long periods of silence during a chaotic situation. There were no Indian spokespersons available out of New Delhi or Mumbai for the world media is get a coherent account of what was happening even 24 hours after the crisis erupted.
Barack Obama said on Wednesday as the world reached out to India in sympathy and support over what American analysts described as “India’s 9/11.”
Both the incumbent Bush administration and Obama and his transition team sent out strong messages of condemnation of the attacks and their backing for India even as they coordinated their response in the transition phase in the United States. President Bush phoned Prime Minister Manmohan Singh from Camp David early on Thursday morning to offer support and US help in investigation. Soon after, an FBI team from Los Angeles, consisting of bomb and forensic experts, left for Mumbai to help in the investigation.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice briefed Obama over the phone as the White House assembled its national security and intelligence chiefs for discussion and analysis and offered India any help it required.
From Chicago, Obama also spoke to India’s ambassador Ronen Sen, to convey that his thoughts and prayers with those affected by “this tragic situation” and brief him about his conversations with Rice.
''These coordinated attacks on innocent civilians demonstrate the grave and urgent threat of terrorism. The US must continue to strengthen our partnerships with India and nations around the world to root out and destroy terrorist networks,'' Obama said in a statement issued through his national security spokesperson, Brooke Anderson.
In comments that extolled India’s institutional strength and was directed against the fundamentalist mindset in the neighbourhood, Obama also predicted the triumph of democracy over the sickening ideology of extremism even as terrorists/mujahideen earned universal disgust over the attack of Indian civilians and foreign nationals.
Audiences in the US remained glued to coverage of the Mumbai massacre more than 24 hours after the carnage began as it got wall-to-wall TV time on a long Thanksgiving holiday weekend.
For administration and security officials, that long weekend
had already been disrupted by a mid-week security alert that spoke of possible terrorist attacks on New York’s Penn Station and other mass transit in the region; but the bloodbath occurred 10,000 miles away in Mumbai’s most famous landmarks.
The involvement of westerners, including Americans, Britons and Israelis as victims and hostages in the ordeal also ensured greater coverage than usual with US experts trying to connect the dots and link the attack to Kashmir and al-Qaida, and its possible repercussions on United States.
In fact, there was little or no surprise over the attacks given both the alert in New York and the prediction by foreign policy experts, including vice-president elect Joe Biden, that Obama could be tested by terrorist attacks early in his presidency.
US analysts mulled over the larger implications of the attack that seemed to also target westerners while suggesting that this was not a localized attack arising from home-grown militancy.
“The apparent focus on killing or capturing foreign businesspeople, specifically US and UK nationals, has never occurred before, suggesting a wider global anti-Western agenda. This stands in contrast to the national issues that appeared to motivate Indian Mujahideen,” Jane’s Intelligence, said in a brief update on the crisis.
In Washington, the US State Department put out a hotline number (1-888-407-4747) to enable US citizens concerned about the wellbeing of friends and family in India to get information and updates. A travel advisory cautioning against travel to India was expected later in the day.
However, the Indian government did itself little credit with long periods of silence during a chaotic situation. There were no Indian spokespersons available out of New Delhi or Mumbai for the world media is get a coherent account of what was happening even 24 hours after the crisis erupted.
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