UPDATE:
Report: Mumbai Terrorists Abducted Chabad Rabbi's Family
MUMBAI: The terrorists, who created havoc here overnight, came by boats and
struck at 10 places but their number is not known immediately
Fire engulfs a part of the Taj Hotel
LIVE COVERAGE HERE! (hat tip Martin)
UPDATED: Analysis: 700 have died in Indian terrorist attacks, but no cases have been solved
Nearly 700 people have died and hundreds have been maimed in terrorist strikes across India over the past three years, but none of these cases have been solved and no convictions secured.
Muslims have attacked at least 7 hotels and restaurants. There are over 100 injured, possibly 80 dead and the battle is still going on.
They are holding hostages. If you think you are safe in the west, stop drinking the bong water. How long before this starts happening here?
UPDATE: They targeted Jews: INDIAN REPORT SAYS THREE DEAD IN CHABAD HOUSE:
According to CNN/IBN, three people were killed after shots were heard in the area of Chabad House in Mumbai, Israel Radio reported Thursday morning.
The dead, a couple and a 16-year-old boy, were shot inside the Chabad House, the report said.
Chabad fears for safety of its Mumbai rabbi and his wife Hat tip Cynthia
Are we allowed to talk about it, or is this insulting to Islam and in violation of the UN resolution against "defaming Islam".
Mumbai shooters targeted Americans, British Jihadwatch
More on Mumbai,
or Bombay, as it used to be more commonly known, in calmer days.
"Foreigners targeted in coordinated Bombay attacks," by Rhys Blakely in
the Times, November 26 (thanks to Alan):
Gunmen stalked a hotel in Bombay looking for British and US
passport holders during co-ordinated attacks across the city that have
left at least 80 dead.
A series of shootings and bomb blasts at luxury hotels and bars in
the south of the city hit at least nine locations. Security sources
said “a major terror attack” was unfolding amid reports that foreigners
had been taken hostage in one hotel.
Shootings were reported in the lobby of the five-star Taj Mahal
Palace hotel in the Colaba area of south Bombay and at the nearby
Leopolds bar, a popular destination with western backpackers. Witnesses
described pools of blood and bullet scarred walls at both locations.
A witness at the hotel told a local television station: “They wanted anyone with British or American passports.
"They wanted foreigners.”
It was feared that the death toll could rise significantly....
Mumbai Shootings
Update. "Unknown terrorists have conducted a coordinated attack across
Mumbai's major tourist hubs, with over a dozen deaths and many injuries
reported," from SkyNews, November 26 (thanks to Alan):
Gunmen have targeted luxury hotels, a popular tourist
attraction and a crowded train station in at least seven attacks across
India's financial capital.
NDTVare reporting an eighth attack at the JW Marriott hotel.
Terrorists are reportedly still holed up at in three places, including Oberoi and Taj hotels.
The British Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) are advising all Britons in Mumbai to stay indoors.
The FCO also report a further explosion near Mumbai airport.
The death toll is unknown. Officials have said at least 25 people have been wounded.
Reuters are reporting at least 18 fatalities.
The Times of India are reporting as many as 80 people killed and 250 injured in the attacks.
The police commissioner A. N. Roy said: "These are terrorist strikes in at least seven places."
He added: "The terrorists have used automatic weapons and in some places grenades have been lobbed."
Tory MEP Witnessed Shootings
Gunmen opened fire on two of the city's best known luxury hotels, the Taj Mahal and the Oberoi.
They also attacked the crowded Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus station
in southern Mumbai and Leopold's restaurant, a Mumbai landmark.
It was not immediately clear what the motive was for the attacks.
An eyewitness report says one of the attackers asked tourists if they were British or American before opening fire.
Alex Chamberlain added there was "no doubt in my mind" that the
attacks were the result of a fundamentalist Islamic terror attack....
A man carries a victim of a gun attack at the Chatrapati Shivaji Terminus in Mumbai, India, Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2008. A top state officials says at least 40 people have been killed and 100 have been injured when gunmen opened fire on a crowded Mumbai train station, luxury hotels and a restaurant popular with tourists. Johnny Joseph, chief secretary for Maharashtra state, of which Mumbai is the capital, says the death toll could rise further. A.N. Roy, a senior police officer, says police were battling the gunmen
A policeman gives water to an injured child at a hospital in Mumbai November 26, 2008. At least 10 people were killed and 26 wounded in a series of shootings around India's financial capital Mumbai on Wednesday night, with two five-star hotels among the targets in what police called a terror attack. Maharahstra state police chief A.N. Roy said attackers had fired automatic weapons indiscriminately, and used grenades, adding that they were still holed up in some buildings.
UPDATE: Hat tip wolf:
Update
| 8:46 p.m. Wired blogger Noah Shachtman points out that “First-hand
accounts of the deadly Mumbai attacks are pouring in on Twitter, Flickr, and
other social media.”
Shachtman
rounds up links to Twitter accounts which are being updated minute by minute,
including one on Mumbai and another
called BreakingNewz.
The
samples Shachtman quotes — “Hospital update. Shots still being fired. Also Metro
cinema next door,” tweets mumbaiattack. “Blood needed at JJ hospital,” adds
aeropolowoman, supplying the numbers for the blood bank. — are among the more
newsy. What is striking is how Twitter blends together accounts from people who
have real, even first-hand information, and notes from people who are watching
TV or reading the Web and passing on second or third-hand accounts.
Schachtman
also draws our attention to a
Google map of the attack sites, which has been created and “a
shockingly-current Wikipedia page.”
View
Larger Map
Update
| 8:34 p.m. According to NDTV “more than 100 hostages” are still being
held in the Taj hotel. Their man on the scene outside the Taj says that the
hostages are not contained in one area, but are spread throughout the hotel and
that no explosions have been heard for about 20 minutes.
Just
now though, gun fire was clearly audible in or around the Taj.
Update
| 8:18 p.m. Another source of live
video from Mumbai is the Web site of NDTV, where the latest report from
outside the Taj Hotel is that more gunfire has broken out in the area of the
hotel’s lobby.
IBN reports that police
sources tell them that 4 or 5 foreign hostages are still being held on the 19th
floor of the Oberoi hotel.
Update
| 8:05 p.m. More eyewitness accounts: Britain’s The Guardian talked
by cell phone with a Member of the European Parliament, who said he was
barricaded in the basement of the Taj Hotel.
“Some
of us split one way and some another,” said Sajjad Karim, who represents the
North West of England in Europe’s legislative body. “A gunman just stood there
spraying bullets around, right next to me. 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’ve barricaded all the doors. It’s really
bad.”
Update
| 8:00 p.m. Amit Varma, a Mumbai blogger, gives us a sense of how these
attacks clash with the normal atmosphere in this cosmopolitan city:
This
is turning out to be one crazy night. A friend of mine had an opening of her art
exhibition a few hours ago, so we ventured to South Bombay for that. We attended
the exhibition, sipped the litchee juice, nibbled on party snacks, and then six
of us headed out for dinner. First we tried Indigo Deli, which is a couple of
hundred metres from the Taj. We were told there would be a 25-minute wait. So we
headed to All Stir Fry, the restaurant in the Gordon House Hotel in a lane down
from there. They told us we’d have to wait 20 minutes. We stepped out again, and
as we did so, we heard gunshots, and saw people running towards us from the left
side.
One
of the hotel employees rushed out and told us to get back in. “There must have
been an encounter,” he said. “Get back in, you’ll be safe inside.”
We
followed him in. We waited in the lounge-bar upstairs for a while. The big
screen there was showing cricket. India won. Then someone changed the
channel.
That’s
when we realised that this was much more than a random police encounter, or a
couple of gunshots. We heard that terrorists with AK-47s had opened fire outside
Leopold’s, the pub down the road. We heard there was firing elsewhere in the
city as well, including in the Taj. We watched transfixed, and as the apparent
scale of the incidents grew, we realised we couldn’t go home. We asked if they
had a room vacant; they did, so we settled in, switched on the TV, and watched
in horror.
Update
| 7:19 p.m. A spokesman for President-elect Barack Obama said that Mr.
Obama “strongly condemns today’s terrorist attacks in Mumbai, and his thoughts
and prayers are with the victims, their families, and the people of India.
The
statement continues
These
coordinated attacks on innocent civilians demonstrate the grave and urgent
threat of terrorism. The United States must continue to strengthen our
partnerships with India and nations around the world to root out and destroy
terrorist networks. We stand with the people of India, whose democracy will
prove far more resilient than the hateful ideology that led to these
attacks.
Update
| 7:04 p.m. One of our readers, Kamla Bhatt, points us to the Flickr page of Vinukumar
Ranganathan, which has a series of photographs of the aftermath of the
attacks.
Update
| 6:50 p.m. Michael Rubenstein, a photographer working with The New
York Times reports from outside the Taj hotel in Mumbai that the top floor of
the hotel is still on fire and that hotel guests are banging on the windows
begging to be rescued.
Update
| 6:29 p.m. The Web site of the South Asian Journalists Association, SAJA
Forum, will be hosting another live discussion on the attacks in Mumbai at
10 p.m. New York time. Suketu Mehta, the author of “Maximum City: Bombay Lost
& Found” will take part. You can listen to the discussion via Blog
Talk Radio or participate via phone by calling +1-347-324-5991.
Update
| 6:23 p.m. For those unable to load the live video from IBN’s Web
site, we have this video report from MSNBC.com on the attacks in Mumbai.
Update
| 6:02 p.m. At Mumbai’s Taj Hotel, firefighters have rescued several
people from lower floors and are still battling fires on the upper floors.
Earlier
in the evening, a leading anti-terrorism official, Hemant Karkare, was killed in
what Indian TV described as “a shootout with terrorists at the Taj Mahal Hotel.”
CNN-IBN’s report features
a photograph of Mr. Karkare getting ready to take part in the action.
Update
| 5:52 p.m. The Indian TV news channel CNN-IBN reports from outside the
upscale Oberoi Hotel that Indian military forces entered the hotel after
gunshots were heard inside.
CNN-IBN’s
Web site reports that earlier this morning
The
Army stormed Hotel Taj Intercontinental in Mumbai early on Thursday morning to
flush out terrorists holed up inside. Plumes of smoke were seen billowing out of
the top floor of the hotel and there were reports of the floor catching fire
after a bomb - the sixth in a series of blasts heard from inside the hotel -
exploded. The attack on the 22-storey, five-star hotel by the Arabian Sea was
one among the seven daring strikes across various locations in south Mumbai.
The
Web site of CNN-IBN, an English-language Indian TV news
channel, is streaming live video
from Mumbai of events as they continue to unfold. At 3:50 a.m. local time,
the broadcast was dominated by dramatic images of the Taj Hotel on fire and
reports of hostages still being held.
Details
of what happened tonight in the city are still developing. In her most recent
update, Somini Sengupta, chief of the New York Times news bureau in New
Delhi, reports:
The
state’s highest ranking police official, A.N. Roy, said the attackers, armed
with machine guns and grenades, opened fire and disappeared. Local television
reported deaths tolls as high as 80, none of them could be confirmed and the
police were yet to give an official count of their own.
Her
article will continue to be updated throughout the evening.
The
Web site of the South Asian Journalists Association, SAJA
Forum, is hosting a live discussion with journalists and experts in Mumbai
and the United States on the attacks, and a comment thread there contains a
large number of links to other reports online.
We
have posted Indian
television footage of the chaotic aftermath of the attacks. The BBC is also
streaming video from India’s Star
TV.
We
expect to have more video and links to other sources of information soon.
As
Randeep Ramesh of The Guardian notes,
Mumbai has a grim history of large-scale violence:
Mumbai
has frequently been targeted in terror attacks, including a series of blasts in
July 2006 that killed 187 people.
The
city has been hit repeatedly by attacks since March 1993, when Muslim underworld
figures tied to Pakistani militants allegedly carried out a series of bombings
on Mumbai’s stock exchange, trains, hotels and gas stations.
Authorities
say those attacks, which killed 257 people and wounded more than 1,100, were
carried out to revenge the deaths of hundreds of Muslims in religious riots
which had swept India.
Ten
years later, in 2003, 52 people were killed in Mumbai bombings blamed on Muslim
militants and in July 2006 a series of seven blasts ripped through railway
trains and commuter rail stations. At least 187 died in those attacks.
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