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.
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.
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." (source)
"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.
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.
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." (source)
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