International Herald Tribune
At least 100 dead in India terror attacks By Somini Sengupta and Mark McDonald Published: November 27, 2008
MUMBAI: Indian police commandos rescued some hostages on Thursday as standoffs continued against heavily armed militants who a day earlier had swept into Mumbai, India's commercial capital, in a shocking series of coordinated and bloody attacks.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said in a televised address that the attackers probably had "external linkages" - the first official indication that the authorities were likely to blame outsiders.
The hooded gunmen, firing automatic weapons and throwing hand grenades, attacked at least two luxury hotels, the city's largest train station, a Jewish center, a movie theater and a hospital.
The Mumbai police said Thursday afternoon that the attacks killed at least 101 people and wounded at least 314. It was not immediately clear how many hostages were freed in the commando operation or how many were still being held.
In his television address, Mr. Singh said the "well-planned and well-orchestrated attacks, probably with external linkages, were intended to create a sense of terror by choosing high-profile targets." He did not specify the likely source of outside involvement.
Even by the standards of terrorism in India, which has suffered a rising number of attacks this year, the assaults were particularly brazen in scale, coordination and execution.
It was not clear on Thursday evening how many militants were involved in the attack. Nor was it known how many hostages were still being held.
Indian officials said the police had killed six of the suspected attackers and captured nine.
A group unknown to global terrorism experts claimed responsibility for the attacks in e-mails to Indian media outlets. Analysts believed the group, calling itself the Deccan Mujahedeen, has no apparent link to Al Qaeda.
"It's even unclear whether it's a real group or not," said Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism scholar and professor at Georgetown University. He added that the style of the attack, particularly since it was staged without suicide bombers, was "not exactly Al Qaeda's modus operandi."
The masked attackers used boats to reach the urban peninsula where they hit. Their targets in Mumbai included a number of high-profile sites that offered little in the way of security.
"When one thinks of the Indian global elite, one thinks of Mumbai," said Christine Fair, a senior political scientist and a South Asia expert at the RAND Corporation. ""It's the financial city. It's the entertainment city. It's India's New York."
On Thursday evening, The Associated Press reported that police were surrounding Nariman House, the headquarters of the Orthodox Jewish group, Chabad Lubavitch. Gunmen had seized the facility late Wednesday night. Officials were uncertain how many hostages, if any, were inside.
But Israel's Foreign Ministry said it was trying to locate an unspecified number of Israelis missing in Mumbai, according to Haaretz.com, the Web site of an Israeli newspaper.
On Thursday afternoon, a police official said, guests who were being held hostage at the iconic Taj Mahal Palace and Tower Hotel had been "rescued," although others had locked themselves in their rooms. People staying at the Trident-Oberoi, another five-star hotel that was attacked, apparently were still being detained, said the official, A.N. Roy, the police chief of Maharashtra State, where Mumbai is located. Roy appeared on NDTV on Thursday and was quoted by Reuters about the standoff at the Taj. "People who were held up there, they have all been rescued. But there are guests in the rooms, we don't know how many," he said.
He added that the continuing hostage situation at the Oberoi was being "conducted more sensitively to ensure there are no casualties of innocent people."
Hours after the assaults began on Wednesday night, the Taj, next to the famed waterfront monument the Gateway of India, was in flames. Guests banged on the windows of the upper floors as firefighters worked to rescue them.
Fire also raged inside the Oberoi, according to the police. A militant hiding in the Oberoi told India TV on Thursday morning that seven attackers were holding hostages there.
"We want all mujahedeen held in India released, and only after that we will release the people," he said.
Some guests, including two members of the European Parliament who were visiting as part of a trade delegation, remained in hiding in the hotels, making desperate cellphone calls, some of them to television stations, describing their ordeal.
Alex Chamberlain, a British citizen who was dining at the Oberoi, told Sky News television that a gunman had ushered 30 or 40 people from the restaurant into a stairway and, speaking in Hindi or Urdu, ordered them to put up their hands.
"They were talking about British and Americans specifically," he said. "There was an Italian guy, who, you know, they said, 'Where are you from?' and he said he's from Italy, and they said, 'Fine,' and they left him alone."
Alex Chamberlain, a British citizen who was dining at the Oberoi, told Sky News television that a gunman had ushered 30 or 40 people from the restaurant into a stairway and, speaking in Hindi or Urdu, ordered them to put up their hands.
"They were talking about British and Americans specifically," he said. "There was an Italian guy, who, you know, they said, 'Where are you from?' and he said he's from Italy, and they said, 'Fine,' and they left him alone."
Other reports about militants seeking out British and Americans to be taken as hostages could not be reliably confirmed.
Sajjad Karim, 38, a British member of the European Parliament, told Sky News: "A gunman just stood there spraying bullets around, right next to me."
Before his phone went dead, Karim added: "I managed to turn away and I ran into the hotel kitchen and then we were shunted into a restaurant in the basement. We are now in the dark in this room, and we have barricaded all the doors. It's really bad."
Attackers had also entered Cama and Albless Hospital, according to Indian television reports.
Several high-ranking law enforcement officials, including the chief of the antiterrorism squad and a commissioner of police, were reported killed.
The military was quickly called in to assist the police.
Hospitals in Mumbai, a city of more than 12 million that was formerly called Bombay, have appealed for blood donations. As a sense of crisis gripped much of the city, schools, colleges and the stock exchange were closed Thursday.
Vilasrao Deshmukh, the chief minister for Maharashtra State, told the CNN-IBN station that the attacks hit five to seven targets, concentrated in the southern tip of the city, known as Colaba and Nariman Point. But hours after the attacks began, the full scope of the assaults was unclear.
Around midnight, more than two hours after the series of attacks began, television images from near the historic Metro Cinema showed journalists and bystanders ducking for cover as gunshots rang out. The charred shell of a car lay in front of Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, formerly Victoria Terminus, the mammoth railway station. A nearby gas station was blown up.
The renowned Leopold Café, a favorite tourist spot that was founded in 1871, was also hit.
A 31-year-old man who was in the Taj hotel attending a friend's wedding reception said he was getting a drink around 9:45 p.m. when he heard something like firecrackers — "loud bursts" interspersed with what sounded like machine-gun fire.
A window of the banquet hall shattered, and guests scattered under tables and were quickly escorted to another room, he said. No one was allowed to leave.
Just before 1 a.m., another loud explosion rang out, and then another about a half-hour later, the man said.
At 6 a.m., he said that when the guests tried to leave the room early Thursday, gunmen opened fire. One person was shot.
The man's friend, the groom, was two floors above, in the old wing of the hotel, trapped in a room with his bride. One explosion, he said, took the door off its hinges. He blocked it with a table.
Then came another blast, and gunfire rang out throughout the night. He did not want to be identified, for fear of being tracked down.
Rakesh Patel, a British businessman who escaped the Taj, told a television station that two young men armed with a rifle and a machine gun took 15 hostages, forcing them to the roof.
The gunmen, dressed in jeans and T-shirts, "were saying they wanted anyone with British or American passports," Patel said.
He and four others managed to slip away in the confusion and smoke of the upper floors, he said. He said he did not know the fate of the remaining hostages.
Clarence Rich Diffenderffer, of Wilmington, Delaware, said after dinner at the hotel he headed to the business center on the fifth floor.
"A man in a hood with an AK-47 came running down the hall," shooting and throwing four grenades, Diffenderffer said. "I, needless to say, beat it back to my room and locked it, and double-locked it, and put the bureau up against the door."
Diffenderffer said he was rescued hours later, at 6:30 a.m., by an emergency squad cherrypicker.
Indian military forces arrived outside the Oberoi at 2 a.m., and some 100 officers from the central government's Rapid Action Force, an elite police unit, entered later.
CNN-IBN reported the sounds of gunfire from the hotel just after the police contingent went in.
The Bush administration condemned the attacks, as did President-elect Barack Obama's transition team. The White House said it was still "assessing the hostage situation."
On Thursday morning, President George W. Bush spoke by telephone with the Indian prime minister, Manmohan Singh, the White House press office said in a statement. "The president offered support and assistance to the government of India as it works to restore order, provide safety to its people and comfort to the victims and their families, and investigate these despicable acts," the statement said.
Somini Sengupta reported from Mumbai and Mark McDonald from Hong Kong. Reporting was contributed by Michael Rubenstein and Prashanth Vishwanathan from Mumbai; Jeremy Kahn and Hari Kumar from New Delhi; Souad Mekhennet from Frankfurt, Germany; Sharon Otterman and Michael Moss from New York; Alan Cowell from Paris; and Mark Mazzetti from Washington.
-- My humanity is in feeling we are all voices of the same poverty. - Jorge Louis Borges