At least 101 people were killed in Mumbai in terrorist attacks on two luxury hotels as Indian commandos freed hostages held by gunmen at one of the buildings.
Militants armed with grenades and rifles stormed into the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower hotel and the Oberoi Trident complex at about 10 p.m. local time yesterday, saying they were targeting Americans and Britons. Three U.S. citizens were injured, the State Department said. Up to 125 people died in the attacks, Timesnow.tv reported, citing police.
People were still barricaded in their rooms after the hostage situation at the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower Hotel ended today, Mumbai Police Chief A.N. Roy said. The Oberoi Group said as many as 200 people may be in its two buildings, based on estimates of occupancy and staff.
A fire broke out on several floors at the Trident Hotel as Indian commandos engaged in an intense fight with terrorists, police official Hasan Gafoor said. Forty people were evacuated, he said. Roy said the Oberoi engagement would soon be over.
“We came up against highly motivated terrorists,” Vice- Admiral J.S. Bedi told the NDTV 24x7 television network. He said his commandos exchanged fire on the second floor of the Taj hotel with terrorists, and showed pictures of recovered hand grenades, tear gas shells, AK47 magazines, knives and credit cards.
Targeting foreign nationals at key tourist hotels and restaurants adds a new dimension to a wave of bombings in India this year that has killed more than 300 people. Multiple attacks have rocked India’s cities with bombs planted in markets, theaters and near mosques. The attacks left about 290 people injured.
Taj Manager
The wife and two sons of the general manager of the Taj were killed, the Press Trust of India reported. The manager’s kin lived at the hotel. His sons were aged five and 14, the news agency reported. The manager himself is safe.
Earlier, Mumbai police said 14 people were evacuated from the Trident hotel, where gunfire was heard, without saying whether they were hostages. The city, India’s financial center. closed its markets today.
And a new series of blasts was heard at the Taj, as commandos continued a sweep through the property. Ratan Tata, whose Tata Group owns the hotels, said the commandos had the Taj under control. A fire broke out on the fourth floor of the heritage wing of the hotel, with smoke seen billowing out of a window in television pictures.
‘New York of India’
“Mumbai is the New York of India and this is a clear attack on Westerners,” said Clive Williams, a terrorism specialist at the Australian National University in Canberra. “The targeting of British and Americans means there is a new modus operandi.”
There may be as many as 12 terrorists at the Oberoi and there is no proposal to negotiate with them, said R.R. Patil, deputy chief minister of the western Maharashtra state, after reports the militants were demanding the release of all Mujahedeen fighters held in India.
India will “go after” individuals and organizations behind the attacks, which were “well-planned with external linkages” Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said in a televised address to the nation. The government will take steps to ensure there is no repetition of the terrorist attacks, Singh said today.
Television pictures showed people who had gathered outside the Trident complex shouting “Bharat Mata Ki Jai (Long live the Motherland)” as commandos stepped out of trucks and walked toward the buildings.
‘Sheer Chaos’
“It was sheer chaos,” said Manuela Testolini, a Canadian businesswoman who was dining at the Oberoi when gunmen burst in hunting for foreign nationals. “Every time we heard gunshots they were right behind us,” Testolini, who escaped through the kitchen with guests and hotel workers, told CNN television.
“They told everybody to stop and put their hands up and asked if there were any British or Americans,” businessman Alex Chamberlain told Sky Television. “My friend said to me, ‘don’t be a hero, don’t say you are British.’”
A little known Islamist group called the Deccan Mujahedeen claimed responsibility for the Mumbai attacks, the Press Trust of India reported. Gunmen may have come from Pakistan, the Times Now television channel said, citing an unidentified intelligence official.
The Indian Navy captured a ship that is suspected to have dropped terrorists off the coast of Mumbai before attacking the city, IBN7 reported, citing unidentified intelligence officials.
Karachi Link
The Vietnam-registered ship, MV Alfa, allegedly came from Karachi and probably dropped the terrorists in speed boats in the Arabian Sea outside Indian territorial waters, the Hindi-language television channel said.
President-elect Barack Obama led global condemnation of the attacks as his transition team said the U.S. would work with “India and nations around the world to root out and destroy terrorist networks.”
President George W. Bush telephoned Singh today and offered U.S. support and assistance to India, his spokeswoman said.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the “outrageous” attacks in India would be met with a “vigorous response.”
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called for the attackers to be “brought to justice swiftly,” while Indian President Pratibha Devisingh Patil, on an official visit to Vietnam, condemned the attacks as the “mindless” act of people “pursuing a path of destruction.”
And Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari also condemned the attack, calling it “detestable.”
Six foreigners, 14 policemen, including the head of Mumbai’s anti-terrorism unit, and 81 members of the public were killed, according to police.
Western Deaths
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said an Australian was killed in the attacks. One Japanese citizen was killed and another injured, the Foreign Ministry in Tokyo said. An Italian was also killed, the country’s Foreign Ministry said. And a Briton also died in the attack, the Foreign Office said.
Seven Britons were hurt in the attacks, British High Commissioner Sir Richard Stagg said in televised comments, adding he had no information on the nationality of the hostages. Twenty- six policemen were also hurt, Police Sub-Inspector S.D. Tarwadkar said in a telephone interview from Mumbai.
The attacks, the worst in the city since train blasts in July 2006 killed 187 people and injured more than 800, began with explosions and gunfire ringing out across the city.
Armed with AK-47 rifles and grenades, two terrorists entered the passenger hall of Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus and opened fire, PTI said. Images on television showed blood-spattered luggage strewn across the floor.
Cafe Leopold
Shootings occurred outside Cafe Leopold, in the Colaba district of south Mumbai where the Taj is located, CNN-IBN television reported.
A rabbi and his wife were being held hostage in the Chabad- Lubavitch Center in Mumbai after gunmen attacked the Jewish facility, a spokesman for the group in Israel said in a telephone interview. Several Israelis were also being held in the building, said Menachem Brod, a spokesman for Chabad, a Brooklyn-based Hassidic group.
Brod said that a woman who worked in the Chabad building, located in the Colaba neighborhood, had escaped along with the rabbi’s two-year-old son and a cook. “She reported that the rabbi and his wife are alive but that they are unconscious,” Brod said, adding he didn’t know how many Israelis were being held hostage or how many gunmen were in the building.
One of the militants asked for talks with the Indian government, offering release of the hostages, Sky News said.
Taj Fire
The Taj was damaged as a fire broke out overnight, forcing emergency workers to evacuate guests by ladders. All 26 South Koreans at the hotel were rescued, according to the Foreign Ministry in Seoul.
The hotel is a landmark in the city and its owners, Indian Hotels Co., said they would “rebuild every inch that has been damaged.”
The hotel overlooks the historic Gateway of India monument, the scene of a car bomb explosion in August 2003 when attacks in Mumbai killed at least 50 people.
Like the Taj, the Oberoi is popular with international visitors to Mumbai. Previous guests have included News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch and Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates, according to the hotel’s Web site. The Oberoi Group, founded in 1934, also operates the luxury Trident hotel brand.
Security Across India
Security was stepped up at other luxury hotels across India. In the capital, New Delhi, the Imperial Hotel posted extra guards and swung its gates half-closed to prevent cars from entering freely.
Schools and colleges in Mumbai will be closed today, the PTI news agency reported.
The attacks come as India accelerates efforts to prop up a slumping economy battered by the global financial crisis.
India’s central bank said last month that growth in the $1.2 trillion economy may be as little as 7.5 percent in the year ending next March, compared with 9 percent in the previous 12 months.
The attacks may affect tourism, which climbed 10 percent in the first nine months of the year to 3.87 million visitors, generating $8.8 billion in revenue.
Between January 2004 and March 2007 the death toll from terrorist attacks in India was 3,674, second only to Iraq during the same period, according to the National Counterterrorism Center in Washington.
The government has previously blamed terrorist attacks on organizations linked to foreign powers, without offering evidence or making arrests. Local media often blame the attacks on groups backed by Pakistan or Bangladesh, without identifying the security officials who provided the information.
India’s capital, New Delhi, was rocked by five blasts during an evening rush hour in September, killing as many as 26 people and injuring about 133. Indian Mujahadeen, which claimed responsibility for similar attacks in Ahmedabad and Jaipur, said it was behind the blasts.
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