Indian Official: Siege at Taj Hotel Over
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MUMBAI – Commandoes killed two remaining militants making a last stand at the Taj Mahal hotel Saturday, Police Chief Hasan Ghafoor said, marking the end of one of the most brazen terror attacks in India's history.
The fight was marked by sporadic gunfire and grenade blasts and culminated in a burst of fire and smoke from the landmark hotel. It came less than a day after elite troops stormed a Jewish outreach center and found six hostages dead.
"The Taj operation is over. The last two terrorist holed up there have been killed," Mr. Ghafoor told The Associated Press.
The violence started Wednesday when assailants attacked 10 sites across Mumbai, India's financial capital. More than 150 people were killed, including at least 22 foreigners, at least three of them Americans. Another 370 were reported injured.
Authorities are working to find out who was behind the attacks, claimed by a previously unknown group of suspected Islamic militants calling itself the Deccan Mujahideen.
Smoke and flames billow out from The Taj Mahal hotel.
Commandoes had started on Friday afternoon moving through the stately Taj Mahal Palace & Tower hotel and the luxury complex that houses the Oberoi and Trident hotels, flushing out militants and trying to rescue hostages. At least 93 hostages were released from the Trident complex. Twenty-four others were found dead inside.
Late in the day Friday, commandoes made a final move on the Jewish center. They blew a gaping a hole in one of its walls before killing the last two militants barricaded in the building. Five hostages were found dead there, including the rabbi and his wife.
The final throes of the crisis exposed the huge challenges India faces in trying to deal with terrorism. Many key questions about the attacks were unanswered.
Video
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- Fighting Rages On at Taj Mahal Hotel
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- Footage of the attacks from New Delhi TV
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The assaults were unusual not only because of their meticulous planning and sophisticated execution, but because the attackers took hostages yet didn't make any formal demands. Experts said they seemed intent on a lengthy, crippling siege that occupied attention -- and instilled fear -- around the world for days. That contrasts with the hallmark of other recent Islamic terrorist attacks: a bomb blast or suicide rampage that caused maximum devastation in a short time.
"This was designed to go in, capture and hold," said Vikram Sood, former chief of India's external intelligence arm, the Research and Analysis Wing. "This could be replicated in any number of places."
Pakistan offered the help of its spy service, Inter-Services Intelligence, to help New Delhi investigate, an unprecedented move, as Indian officials continued to suggest Pakistani involvement.
A senior Pakistani official said Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani to make the request, telling him the attackers may have come from Karachi, a port on Pakistan's Arabian Sea coast.
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Indian army commandos took up position around Chabad House Friday as they prepared to enter the Jewish center to free hostages.
Indian officials said they had found a boat on which ammunition for the attacks was allegedly smuggled from Pakistan. A dead body also was found in the boat, said Commandant A.K.S. Panwar, a spokesman for India's Coast Guard.
The home minister for Maharashtra state, where Mumbai is located, told reporters that a captured militant had provided evidence of foreign links. "From his statement, it's clear that they are from Pakistan and other countries," said Shriprakash Jaiswal, without elaborating. Two assailants, from the Jewish center and a hotel, were recorded calling Indian television stations with their complaints, with one described in Indian news reports as having a Pakistani accent.
Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari said "non-state actors," meaning people without any state backing, were trying to disrupt Pakistan's efforts to normalize relations with India.
Investigators also were pursuing the possibility that citizens from other countries were involved, as well as locals who provided support. One identity card found in a rucksack abandoned by the terrorists at the Taj hotel was issued by the government of Mauritius. Commandoes also recovered seven credit cards from a number of Indian and international banks that operate in India, as well as dollars and Indian currency.
Britain dismissed reports that some of the attackers were British, saying it was too early to make conclusions. "There is no evidence that those who were involved in the terrorist attacks are British," a spokesman for the Foreign and Commonwealth office said.
A U.S. counter-terrorism official said the U.S. is sending Federal Bureau of Investigation investigators to Mumbai since some of the victims were American. The official said Friday that the investigation is turning up evidence that supports the U.S. government's "working assumption" that Pakistani militant groups Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed are behind the attacks. He added that it remained early. "What you have not heard is any sort of suggestion at this point of Pakistani government collusion," the official said.
Both groups are believed to have links to al Qaeda. They rose to prominence fighting in an Islamic insurgency in the Indian-controlled region of Kashmir, a predominately Muslim region divided between India and Pakistan.
Indian forces take their positions around the Taj Mahal hotel on Friday, seeking to rout the last of the militants who have terrorized Mumbai.
Indian officials have blamed both groups for past attacks in India, such as the July 2006 commuter-train bombings in Mumbai.
Both groups say their ultimate aim is to reestablish Muslim dominion over the subcontinent, which ended with the arrival of British colonizers two centuries ago. Among their more immediate aims is to disrupt the India-Pakistan peace process.
A previously unknown group, the Deccan Mujahideen, claimed responsibility for the Mumbai attack, describing itself as hailing from the south Indian city of Hyderabad, which is about 40% Muslim.
Indian security officials have cast doubt on whether the claim was genuine, however.
Mumbai residents, accustomed to floods and large-scale terrorist attacks, were nevertheless shaken by the siege.
"I was very keen that we not get cowed down by these terrorists, so I insisted we open our offices and go back to work," said Tina Tahiliani-Parikh, owner of Ensemble, a retail chain of designer clothes.
But by early afternoon, rumors of fresh gunfire at a hospital, a train station and elsewhere erupted around the city. Residents scurried home.
The rumors later proved to be false. Still, "Everyone got into a fearful frenzy, so I had to close the office," Ms. Tahiliani-Parikh said.
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Where the Attacks Took Place
Gunfire was reported at luxury hotels, a restaurant, police headquarters and a train station.
Streets of the city, which usually are chaotic with traffic, bicycles, buses and scampering pedestrians, were deserted even far from the southern tip of the island where the assaults were taking place.
Deepika Mehra had opened her Vanilla Moon shoe store in Mumbai's trendy Kemps Corner. She closed her store in the afternoon, as well. "I was just so freaked out. I figured it's better that they're safe than that we take a stand and refuse to let these terrorists terrify us," she said.
One reason for the fear was how hard it was to separate fact from rumor. Residents complained that the government kept them in the dark. "They don't have any crisis-management program in the country," said Trupti Bellad-Hermans, 36, a Mumbai entrepreneur.
Security experts say the crisis also highlighted India's disjointed response to terrorist attacks and its meager resources for countering terrorist threats.
In the attack that began Wednesday night, many of the few hundred men in Mumbai's anti-terror squad -- the main force first deployed against the terrorists -- had only handguns meant to be used against common criminals. The militants carried assault weapons and grenades.
Though they were outgunned, the officers did take on the attackers. The squad's chief and two of its top officers were killed in the first few hours of fighting.
India has 126 police officers per 100,000 people compared to the United Nations" recommended standard of 222. Many of those, says Sanker Sen, an ex-police official, "guard VIPs all day or work at traffic stops."
India's elite domestic investigative agency, the Intelligence Bureau, has about 3,500 agents who cover everything from corporate crime to terrorist outfits for the country of 1.1 billion people.
"We have been unable to crack the major terror cells, to find the main leaders, and this is limiting what we know," said an official with the Home Ministry, which oversees domestic security.
He said that homegrown militants were likely involved, explaining that the attackers knew too much about Mumbai for all of them to be foreign. "But there is a foreign angle."
Hotline Numbers
- The U.S. State Department has established a Consular Call Center for Americans concerned about family or friends who may be visiting or living in Mumbai, India. The number is (888) 407-4747.
- The U.K. government has set up hotlines for people worried about the safety of friends and family. The U.K. number is 44 (0)20 7008 0000. The number in India is (0091) 1124192288.
Mr. Singh, the prime minister, pledged Thursday to create national counterterrorism agency.
Even when India's crack troops took over -- and ultimately brought the siege under their control -- they appeared ill-prepared at times. Hundreds of commandoes and paramilitary troopers arrived with little more than their guns, old body armor and fiberglass helmets "that are for riding motorcycles, not fighting terrorists," said Ajai Sahni of the South Asia Terrorism Portal, a New Delhi-based research outfit.
When elite Marine commandoes stormed the Taj hotel Wednesday night, they were outmaneuvered by the terrorists, according to an account given to reporters by one commando whose face was masked by scarves and sunglasses.
The commando said his force at first had sought to reach the room of the hotel where the closed-circuit security monitors were housed, but had been unable to access it. Then a firefight ensued and it became clear that "these people were very, very familiar with the layout of the hotel, they knew all the entries and exits."
When the terrorists moved to another room, in a different part of the hotel, there was more gunfire. But "because the room was absolutely dark and they were accustomed to the darkness there, one of our commandoes was injured," the commando said. He didn't say why his troopers didn't have lights.
After 6 a.m. Thursday, the two sides exchanged more gunfire. The commando said the troops eventually entered the room.
They found hundreds of rounds of ammunition, some grenades, and dried fruit, but no terrorists. They appear to have left through a terrace that the troops hadn't realized was there until it was too late.
—Peter Wonacott, Matthew Rosenberg, Krishna Pokharel, Eric Bellman, Siobhan Gorman, Alistair MacDonald and the Associated Press contributed to this article
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