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Indian commandos killed the last remaining gunmen holed up at a luxury Mumbai hotel Saturday, ending a 60-hour rampage through India's financial capital by suspected Islamic militants that killed 195 people and rocked the nation.
Orange flames and black smoke engulfed the landmark 565-room Taj Mahal hotel after dawn Saturday as Indian forces ended the siege in a hail of gunfire, just hours after elite commandos stormed a Jewish center and found six hostages dead.
"There were three terrorists, we have killed them," said J.K. Dutt, director general of India's elite National Security Guard commando unit.
Some 295 people were also wounded in the violence that started when more than a dozen assailants attacked 10 sites across Mumbai on Wednesday night. Fifteen foreigners were among the dead.
Dutt told reporters outside the hotel his forces would continue to search and clear it. A major in the commandos was killed in the final assault, he said.
Some hotel guests were still believed to be in their rooms. "They are still scared, so even when we request them to come out and identify ourselves, they are naturally afraid," said Dutt.
Outside, anxious relatives stood in groups hoping family members trapped inside would walk out. Many had been keeping a vigil since the attack began.
With the end of one of the most brazen terror attacks in India's history, attention turned from the military operation to questions of who was behind the attack and the heavy toll on human life.
The bodies of New York Rabbi Gavriel Noach Holtzberg and his wife, Rivkah, were found at the Jewish center. Their son, Moshe, who turned 2 on Saturday, was scooped up by an employee Thursday as she fled the building. Two Israelis and another American were also killed in the house, said Rabbi Zalman Schmotkin, a spokesman for the Chabad Lubavitch movement, which ran the center.
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 help investigate.
On Friday, commandos killed the last gunmen inside the luxury Oberoi hotel, where 24 bodies had been found, authorities said. Dozens of people were evacuated from the Oberoi earlier Friday.
The group rescued from the Oberoi, many holding passports, included at least two Americans, a Briton, two Japanese nationals and several Indians. Some carried luggage with Canadian flags. One man in a chef's uniform was holding a small baby. About 20 airline crew members were freed, including staff from Lufthansa and Air France.
"I'm going home, I'm going to see my wife," said Mark Abell, with a huge smile on his face after emerging from the hotel. Abell, from Britain, had locked himself in his room during the siege.
As fighting stretched into a fourth day Saturday, the Taj Mahal hotel was wracked by hours of intermittent gunfire and explosions, even though authorities said earlier they cleared it of gunmen.
Indian forces launched grenades and traded gunfire with what authorities believed was one or two militants holed up in the ballroom. What appeared to be a black-clad figure toppled from a first-floor window.
Officials said at least 12 gunmen had been killed and one arrested after the attack that shook the city and the country.
"There is a limit a city can take. This is a very, very different kind of fear. It will be sometime before things get back to normal," said Ayesha Dar, a 33-year-old homemaker.
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.
The attackers were well-prepared, apparently scouting some targets ahead of time and carrying large bags of almonds to keep up their energy during a long siege. One backpack found contained 400 rounds of ammunition.
The gunmen moved skillfully through the blood-slickened corridors of the Taj Mahal and Oberoi hotels, switching off lights to confuse the commandos.
Authorities were working to find out who was behind the attacks, claimed by a previously unknown group calling itself the Deccan Mujahideen.
President-elect Barack Obama said he was closely monitoring the situation. "These terrorists who targeted innocent civilians will not defeat India's great democracy, nor shake the will of a global coalition to defeat them," he said in a statement.
India's foreign minister said the blame appeared to point to Pakistan. "According to preliminary information, some elements in Pakistan are responsible for Mumbai terror attacks," Pranab Mukherjee told reporters.
Jaiprakash Jaiswal, India's home minister, said a captured gunmen had been identified as a Pakistani.
Pakistani Defense Minister Ahmed Mukhtar denied involvement by his country Friday. "I will say in very categoric terms that Pakistan is not involved in these gory incidents."
India has been shaken repeatedly by terror attacks blamed on Muslim militants in recent years, but most were bombings striking crowded places: markets, street corners, parks. Mumbai — one of the most populated cities in the world with some 18 million people — was hit by a series of bombings in July 2006 that killed 187 people.
These attacks were more sophisticated — and more brazen.
They 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 — the Jewish center, a tourist restaurant, one hotel, then another, and two attacks on hospitals. There were 10 targets in all.
LONDON: Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Friday there was no evidence to confirm reports that Britons of Pakistani origin were involved in the
attacks in Mumbai, but warned it was too soon to reach any conclusions.
London's Evening Standard newspaper, quoting Indian government sources, had reported that some of the gunmen were British. A British security source told Reuters the reports could just be speculative but might contain "elements of truth".
"We are keeping an open mind. It is likely to take a little bit longer before we can say categorically one way or the other," the source said.
Brown told reporters he had talked to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh about the attacks, in which more than 140 people were killed and hundreds of others injured.
"At no point has the prime minister of India suggested to me that there is evidence at this stage of any terrorist of British origins," he said.
"But obviously there are huge investigations that are being done and I think it would be premature to draw any conclusions at all."
The British Foreign Office said it had spoken to Indian authorities at what it called a high level.
"They have said that there is no evidence that anyone, either those shot or those in custody -- the attackers -- are British," a Foreign Office spokesman said.
"The Indian chief minister who was reported as having said Britons were involved has said no such thing either publicly or privately," he added.
Erika Mann, a German member of the European Parliament who was on a trade mission in Mumbai, earlier issued a statement saying she had heard that British Pakistanis took part in the attacks and were killed. She later told Reuters after flying to London that she was just referring to local Indian media reports and did not have any official confirmation.
"British citizenship and Pakistani origin, this was what was said in the news media in Mumbai," she said. The Evening Standard ran a banner headline in its Friday edition saying: "Mumbai Gunmen 'were British'." It said two British-born Pakistanis were captured along with eight others after Indian commando units stormed two hotels and a Jewish centre in central Mumbai to free hostages. London police said they had no information, referring calls to the Indian authorities.
About 750,000 people of Pakistani origin live in Britain, making them the second-largest ethnic minority after the Indian community. Three of four suicide bombers who blew themselves up on London's public transport system in July 2005, killing more than 50 people, were Britons of Pakistani origin. Britain's security services estimate that hundreds of young British-born Pakistanis have travelled to Afghanistan and Pakistan in the past decade to attend militant training camps.
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