Attackers Pakistanis: Indian army

MUMBAI (Agencies) - Militants who staged multiple attacks in the Indian city of Mumbai, killing at least 125 people and injuring hundreds more, came from Pakistan, a senior military official claimed Thursday.
"They are from across the border and perhaps from Faridkot, Pakistan. They tried to pretend that they were from Hyderabad," Maj-Gen RK Hooda, leading the military operation to flush out the extremists, told reporters.
Speaking outside the Trident/Oberoi hotel, one of the two luxury hotels where guests were taken hostage, Hooda, army chief for the western Indian states of Maharashtra, Goa and Gujarat, said, "One Mujahid has been caught."
"He has been injured. We are interrogating him. From his language... he has a Punjabi kind of accent," he added.
Hooda told reporters that one extremist was killed in a military operation to free an estimated 200 people trapped in the Trident/Oberoi. Five to six other militants were still inside, he added.
Some 49 people were rescued from the Trident/Oberoi on Thursday, Hooda said, while 50 people trapped inside the Taj were also brought to safety.
"They were not hostages because when we reached there, the militants had already left," he said.
In all, Hooda said there were "10 to 12 terrorists all over".
Meanwhile, in an extraordinarily harsh stance, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh made it clear that neighbouring nations would have to face a 'cost' if they allowed their territory to be used to launch attacks on India.
In his televised address to the Indian nation, Manmohan termed the attacks a dastardly act, saying, I strongly condemn these acts of senseless violence against innocent people, including guests from foreign countries. I offer my deepest condolences to the bereaved families and sympathies to those injured."
He warned "neighbours" who provide a haven to anti-India militants. He also appealed to the country to "maintain peace and harmony" in the wake of the attacks.
The Indian Premier, who has been moderate in his speeches so far, said, "We will take up strongly with our neighbours that the use of their territory for launching attacks on us will not be tolerated, and that there would be a cost if suitable measures are not taken by them."
Asserting that India would not countenance such attacks, Manmohan said the government would "restrict entry of suspects into the country". "We will go after these individuals and organisations and make sure that every perpetrator, organiser and supporter of terror, whatever his affiliation or religion may be, pays a heavy price," he said.
He announced that the government would immediately set up a Federal Investigation Agency to go into terrorist crimes. "Instruments like the National Security Act will be employed to deal with situations of this kind and existing laws will be tightened to ensure that there are no loopholes available to terrorists to escape the clutches of the law."
Describing the attacks as "well-planned and well-orchestrated, probably with external linkages," Manmohan said, "It is evident that the group which carried out these attacks, based outside the country, had come with single-minded determination to create havoc, by choosing high-profile targets and indiscriminately killing foreigners in the commercial capital."
Promising that his government would "attend in an urgent and serious manner to police reforms," the Prime Minister said India would not countenance a situation in which the safety and security of citizens could be violated with impunity by terrorists. "We are determined to take whatever measures are necessary to ensure safety and security or our citizens."
"In this hour of tragedy, I appeal to the people to maintain peace and harmony so that the enemies of our country do not succeed in their nefarious designs," he said.
"All concerned authorities are on alert and will deal sternly with any attempts to disturb public order. I am confident that the people of India will rise unitedly to face this grave challenge to the nation's security and integrity," he added.
The Indian Prime Minister also vowed to take "the strongest possible measures to ensure that there is no repetition of such terrorist acts."
"Existing laws will be tightened to ensure that there are no loopholes available to terrorists to escape the clutches of the law," he said.
Meanwhile, Indian commandos battled to end a multiple hostage crisis in Mumbai after militants killed 125 people across the city and grabbed foreign guests in two luxury hotels.
According to latest reports, seven terrorists have been killed at the five-star Taj Mahal Palace Hotel but the encounter was on as fresh firing had been reported. Army sources told NDTV that operation at Taj could go on till Friday morning.
The Press Trust of India news agency earlier reported that Indian security forces have arrested three militants, including a Pakistani national, inside the Taj Hotel.
The report identified the Pakistani national as Ajmal Amir Kamal, a resident of Faridkot, Multan. It also said the militants were members of Lashkar-e-Taiba.
It also said the attackers were members of Lashkar-e-Taiba. The report claimed the Pakistani detainee told Indian investigators that the group of 12 assailants had been dropped off by a merchant vessel 10 nautical miles outside Indian waters, and had reached Mumbai in a small speedboat.
Military officials also claimed that terrorists holed up inside the Taj Hotel have been defeated and commandos are now fighting gunmen at the Oberoi/Trident Hotel and Nariman Bhawan (House).
They said special forces had successfully cleared the landmark Taj Mahal Palace Hotel of all but one injured gunman.
"I think we should be able to mop up the operation very quickly," National Security Guards Director-General JK Dutt told the NDTV news channel.
Efforts continued to flush out militants at the Oberoi/Trident Hotel and at a separate office-residential complex, housing a Jewish centre.
Gunfire and blasts had been heard throughout the day from both the five-star hotels where scores of guests were trapped in their rooms - too terrified to move.
According to hospital sources quoted by the Press Trust of India, nine foreign nationals were among the dead - including a Japanese businessman, an Australian, a Briton, a German and an Italian.
According to the Indian media, seven terrorists were killed and nine others were earlier captured during the commando operation in the city.
Around a dozen security personnel were also killed, including the head of Mumbai's anti-terror squad.
Seven hostages have been rescued from Nariman House -a Mumbai residential-business complex - also housing a Jewish centre, which was attacked by gunmen, Indian security officials said late Thursday.
The Israeli embassy said around 10-20 Israeli nationals were among those held or trapped, along with Americans, 25 French and Canadians. Guests who escaped the hotels recounted how the gunmen had specifically tried to round up US and British citizens.
In an audacious operation apparently tailored to gain maximum international attention, the militants had used small groups to attack at least eight other targets in India's financial hub, including the main railway station, a hospital and a restaurant popular with tourists.
An unknown group calling itself the Deccan Mujahideen claimed responsibility, with one gunman telling an Indian TV channel by phone that the outfit was of Indian origin and motivated by the treatment of Indian Muslims.
Mumbai police chief Hassan Gafoor said more than 125 people had died. "The situation is very fluid and the toll could rise further," he told AFP.
The main Bombay Stock Exchange was closed until further notice, as were shops, schools and businesses.
England's cricketers abandoned their ongoing one-day series against India and opted to fly home.
Witnesses said the gunmen had been very particular in their choice of hotel hostages.
"They said they wanted anyone with British and American passports," said one British guest at the Taj, Rakesh Patel.
Terrorists who struck Mumbai had set up advance "Control Rooms" in the luxury Taj and Trident (Oberoi) hotels which was also targeted and did prior reconnaissance executing plans worked "over months", Union Cabinet Minister Kapil Sibal said.
He said the unprecedented terror attack in the country's financial capital was planned "over months" and the terrorists were not carrying AK-47 rifles but sophisticated weapons like MP-6.
"The terrorists have identified the targets earlier. Somebody had told them earlier. Enormous planning went into the incident. The terrorists were dropped by a mother ship and travelled in rubber boats which they docked (at Mumbai)," Sibal told CNBC.
They had targeted certain key police officers even when they were wearing vests and protective head gears, he said, adding the terrorists shot them dead within minutes of their arrival.
Meanwhile, one of the gunmen involved in Wednesday's multiple attacks in Mumbai told a television channel he belonged to an Indian Islamist group seeking an end to the persecution of Indian Muslims.
Identifying himself as a member of a group calling itself Deccan Mujahedeen, the gunman, who was holed up in the Oberoi hotel, called for the release of all fellow militants detained in India.
"Muslims in India should not be persecuted. We love this as our country but when our mothers and sisters were being killed, where was everybody?" he told the India TV channel by phone from inside the hotel, which was surrounded by army commandos.
Witnesses to the carnage said the gunmen had been hunting for British and US nationals.
"They were very young, like boys really, wearing jeans and T-shirts," said one British guest at the Taj, Rakesh Patel, who was among a dozen people herded together by two heavily-armed men and taken to the hotel's upper floors.
"They said they wanted anyone with British and American passports and then they took us up the stairs. I think they wanted to take us to the roof," he said, adding that he and another hostage managed to escape on the 18th floor.
"They told everybody to stop and put their hands up and asked if there were any British or Americans," Alex Chamberlain, a British guest at the Oberoi/Trident hotel, said after fleeing his captors via a fire escape.
"My friend said to me, 'don't be a hero, don't say you are British.'"
Gunmen held an unknown number of hostages inside the hotel and at the famous Taj Mahal hotel overnight and through much of Thursday.
One Taj guest related how she lay on the floor of one room with 25 other petrified people as gunmen fought special commandos.
"That was, without doubt, the worst experience of my entire life," she told reporters. "It was a very, very painful six hours.
"We could hear the army coming through the hotel. We heard the firing and the blasts. In the end the firemen broke the windows of the room and we climbed down the ladder."
Backpacker Steve Loschko, 30, from Minnesota, told AFP he saw a man standing on the roof above the penthouse suites of the Taj at about 1:30 am shouting "Help me, help me" to firefighters.
Military units stormed the Taj hotel in the early hours of Thursday morning to confront a handful of gunmen armed with assault rifles and grenades.
In the encounter a huge fire broke out at the top of the hotel, trapping some guests.
Australian television actress Brooke Satchwell, a former star in the soap opera Neighbours, hid inside a small cupboard when the violence erupted at the Taj.
Meanwhile, Lashkar-i-Tayyiba, which is fighting Indian rule in Kashmir, on Thursday denied any involvement in attacks in Mumbai that killed over 100 people.
"We have nothing to do with Bombay attacks," Abdullah Ghaznavi, a Lashkar-i-Tayyiba spokesman told AFP from Kashmir summer capital Srinagar.
"We do not believe in killing innocent civilians. It appears to be an act of Hindu militants who will then unleash a reign of terror against Muslims under the garb of these attacks," he said.
"We strongly condemn these attacks and we say categorically that we have nothing to do with them."
The denial by the militants, one of several groups fighting against Indian rule in Kashmir, came on the heels of a statement by India's prime minister that those behind coordinated attacks against Mumbai were based "outside the country."
According to Hindustan Times, as leaders of India's security establishment went hopping from one meeting to another in Delhi to review the anti-terrorist operation in Mumbai, India's central security agencies insisted the terrorists who had hit at the financial capital to derail Pak-India relations - were Lashkar-e-Taiba members operating out of Pakistan.
There were intelligence inputs that about a dozen terrorists had travelled by sea to Gujarat two days back and used a fishing vessel to reach close to Mumbai. "From there, they took used a motor boat to reach Sassoon Dock in Colaba, downtown Mumbai," a senior home ministry official said after review meetings convened by Home Minister Shivraj Patil, National Security Adviser MK Narayanan and Cabinet Secretary KM Chandrashekhar.
Special Secretary at the Home Ministry, ML Kumawat, said after landing at the docks the terrorists used the congested finishing colony near Sassoon dock, the pre-independence dock build by a Baghdadi Jew, before moving into south Mumbai.
Kumawat said the Lashkar was a distinct possibility, other intelligence officials emphasised the Al-Qaeda-inspired LeT was on the top of their suspect list in light of their intelligence inputs, scale of attack, the sophistication of the planning and execution and the sophisticated weaponry.
"This was not the job of a splinter group, like the Indian Mujahideen or someone who calls themselves, Deccan Mujahideen... Given how they were targeting foreigners of British and American origin, it seems to be an Al-Qaeda-inspired affair," another intelligence official said.
Officers at the Indian Navy - that launched a search for the mother ship " confirmed this line. "A mother ship or a Dhow appears to have ferried them to a particular point from where they boarded Gemini boats, the inflatable boats that have a capacity of carrying about 10 people and run on petrol. With its 20-litre tank full, these boats can travel up to 25-30 nautical miles," a naval officer said.
"We suspect the mother ship, travelling at a speed of 20 nautical miles per hour, could have crossed about 400 nautical miles by now," he said.
The Indian Navy has pressed warships, choppers and surveillance aircraft to scour high seas in and around Mumbai. It intercepted MV Alpha, a Vietnamese registered ship, but let it pass after a thorough search.
"We know more than we can speak about.... We do not want to jeopardise the lives of the hostages," a senior official at the Indian Home Ministry later said.