Forces in India end three days of terror

Mumbai, India —- Commandos killed the two militants making a last stand at the Taj Mahal Palace & Tower Hotel today, ending days of terror that left more than 150 people dead.

“The Taj operation is over. The last two terrorist holed up there have been killed,” Police Chief Hassan Ghafoor said.

A previously unknown group of suspected Islamic militants calling itself the Deccan Mujahideen claimed responsibility for the attacks, which struck several sites across India’s financial and cultural capital. But Indian leaders said they believed a Pakistani Islamist group, Lashkar-i-Taiba, was behind the three-day-long assault.

An Indian intelligence document from 2006 said members of the group had been trained in maritime assault, apparently a key factor in the attacks, which ended with pitched fighting at the Taj Mahal, the Oberoi —- another luxury hotel —- and a Jewish community center.

In a sign of apparent concern about tensions between the two nuclear-armed states, Pakistani officials said a senior intelligence officer would travel to India to help investigate the case.

Authorities said more than 150 people had been killed and that more than 350 had been injured in the attacks. Among the dead were two Americans from Virginia, the American rabbi who ran the city’s Chabad Lubavitch center and his Israeli wife, and three of their visitors, including an American man, an Israeli woman and a man with U.S. and Israeli citizenship. In all, 16 non-Indians have been reported killed.

Explosions from the fighting could be heard this morning as police rooted out remaining attackers at the Taj Mahal. Hundreds of guests were evacuated from both it and the Oberoi Hotel after many hours of fearful sheltering in their rooms.

Former hostages said many of those trapped did not come face-to-face with the gunmen but hid after hearing gunfire and receiving text messages and calls from loved ones telling them what was happening.

“It was such a scary ordeal when you hear grenades going off and shooting outside your hotel room,” said Philip Meyer, a French businessman who wheeled his luggage out of the Oberoi on Friday and rubbed his eyes, bright pink from two days without sleep. “My two children were calling me nonstop. I was so scared.”

Sanjay Vaswani, associate director of Kroll, a private risk assessment and security firm, said he was sending a stream of text messages to high-level business clients who were trapped inside the Oberoi. Vaswani said he had been at the site for 48 hours.

“We have never seen anything as drastic as this,” he said, watching as a stream of hostages rushed onto buses. “We tried to be in minute-to-minute touch, telling them to stay down, don’t do any sudden moves.”

Police Chief Ghafoor said police teams had found 41 of the dead inside the Oberoi by midnight Friday, and that room-to-room searches were continuing. Among the victims were Americans Alan Scherr, 58, and daughter Naomi, 13, of the Synchronicity Foundation, a Faber, Va., community that promotes a form of meditation. They were killed in a cafe Wednesday night at the Oberoi, said Bobbie Garvey, a Synchronicity spokeswoman.

The Chabad House —- scene of a 12-hour fight that ended with a police assault Friday morning —- was also a scene of tragedy. Found dead inside the center, which served as a synagogue and meeting place for Israeli tourists and the small local Jewish community, were New York Rabbi Gavriel Noach Holtzberg and his Israeli wife, Rivkah; Bentzion Chroman, an Israeli with dual U.S. citizenship; and Leibish Teitlebaum, an American from Brooklyn, said Rabbi Zalman Shmotkin, a spokesman for the Chabad Lubavitch movement.

The Holtzmans’ son, Moshe, who turns 2 on Saturday, was scooped up by an employee as she fled the building.

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said the attackers clearly singled out Jewish and Western targets.

“Our world is under attack. It doesn’t matter whether it happens in India or somewhere else,” she said. “There are Islamic extremists who don’t accept our existence or Western values.”

The gunmen 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 they found contained 400 rounds of ammunition.

They moved skillfully through the blood-slickened corridors of the Taj Mahal and Oberoi, switching off lights to confuse the commandos.

The militants were “very determined,” said an unidentified member of India’s Marine Commando unit, his face wrapped in a black mask.

Andreina Varagona of Nashville, who was shot in the right leg and right arm while dining in the Oberoi hotel, said there was almost no time to escape.

“Within two minutes, they were on us,” she said, adding that about a dozen bodies fell to the floor.

She dragged herself past the dead and into the restaurant kitchen, where employees were huddled for safety. They picked her up, she said, and carried her out.

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.

The Associated Press contributed to this article.

 Associated Press 
MUMBAI ATTACK SITES 
More than 150 people have been killed since Wednesday night when gunmen attacked 10 sites across India's financial capital. 

Map locates areas under attack mentioned in the text.

Sources: GeoEye 2000 satellite picture; AND, Europa Technologies via Google; Times of India, Hidustan Times