Title: Terrorist Attacks in India
Description: November 26, 2008
Admin - November 26, 2008 09:40 PM (GMT)
Anyone watching this? Holy shit.
Check any major news site (CNN, MSNBC, etc) as it's everywhere.
karikocha - November 27, 2008 12:39 AM (GMT)
I just saw a picture of the railway station where they attacked. It's just so awful, blood everywhere.
Shit is crazy.
Goof-Goof - November 27, 2008 02:20 AM (GMT)
Hoooly shit, man!
I just read that they were trying to find foreigners with U.S. and U.K. passports. What...the...fuck?! They caused all that for what? They killed all those innocent people just so they could find and kill other innocent people who are from the U.S and the U.K. How sad. So much pain and devastation inflicted for what?
Admin - November 27, 2008 05:54 AM (GMT)
As soon as I heard it, despite the ignorant media guessing it could be mere separatists or political anarchists, I knew it had to be Islamic extremists due to the fact that they were targeting westerners. Now they've taken hostages as a Jewish center so that should tell you right there who's responsible. But yeah a Muslim militant group has claimed responsibility, so there you go.
LostSoul - November 28, 2008 02:03 AM (GMT)
I feel sooo bad for the people of India right now... :sniff:
Admin - November 28, 2008 04:54 AM (GMT)
As we speak, police are still battling terrorists in the Jewish center of Mumbai.
karikocha - November 28, 2008 07:45 PM (GMT)
| QUOTE |
Commandos who stormed the Mumbai headquarters of an ultra-orthodox Jewish group found the bodies of five hostages inside, including a New York rabbi and his wife, officials said, as a fresh battle raged at the luxury Taj Mahal hotel and other Indian forces ended a siege at another five-star hotel.
More than 150 people have been killed since gunmen attacked 10 sites across India's financial capital starting Wednesday night, including 22 foreigners — four of them Americans, officials said.
Early Friday night, Indian commandos emerged from a besieged Jewish center with rifles raised in an apparent sign of victory after a daylong siege that saw a team rappel from helicopters and a series of explosions and fire rock the building and blow giant holes in the wall.
Inside, though, were five dead hostages.
A delegation from Israel's ZAKA emergency medical services unit entered the building after the raid and reported through an Indian aide that five hostages and two gunmen were dead, a ZAKA spokesman in Israel said. The spokesman had no information on the hostages' identities or whether there were wounded inside.
Jewish law requires the burial of a dead person's entire body, and the mission of the ultra-Orthodox ZAKA volunteers is to rescue the living — and in the case of the dead, carry out the task of gathering up all collectable pieces of flesh and blood.
Numerous local media reports, quoting top military officials, also said five hostages and two gunmen had been killed in the Jewish center.
The airborne assault on the center run by the Jewish outreach group Chabad Lubavitch was punctuated by gunshots and explosions as forces cleared it floor by floor.
Late Friday, Rabbi Zalman Schmotkin, a spokesman for the Chabad Lubavitch movement, said that Rabbi Gavriel Noach Holtzberg and his wife, Rivka, were among the dead.
The couple's toddler son, Moshe Holtzberg, was smuggled out of the center by an employee, and is now with his grandparents.
By Friday evening, at least nine gunmen had been killed and one had been arrested, said R. Patil, a top official in Maharashtra state, where Mumbai is the capital. Media reports said one or two were thought to still be in the Taj Mahal.
Patil said a total of more than 150 people had been killed and 370 injured.
After hours of intermittent gunfire and explosions Friday at the Taj Mahal, a hotel with 565 rooms, the battle heated up at dusk when Indian forces began launching grenades at the hotel, where at least one militant was believed to be holed up inside a ballroom, officials said.
Commandos had killed the two last gunmen inside the nearby Oberoi earlier in the day.
"The hotel is under our control," J.K. Dutt, director general of India's elite National Security Guard commando unit, told reporters, adding that 24 bodies had been found. Dozens of people — including a man clutching a baby — had been evacuated from Oberoi earlier Friday.
Security officials said their operations were almost over.
"It's just a matter of a few hours that we'll be able to wrap up things," Lt. Gen. N. Thamburaj told reporters Friday morning.
The group rescued from the Oberoi, many holding passports, included at least two Americans, a Briton, two Japanese nationals and several Indians. Some carried luggage with Canadian flags. One man in a chef's uniform was holding a small baby. About 20 airline crew members were freed, including staff from Lufthansa and Air France.
"I'm going home, I'm going to see my wife," said Mark Abell, with a huge smile on his face after emerging from the hotel. Abell, from Britain, had locked himself in his room during the siege.
The well-coordinated strikes by small bands of gunmen starting Wednesday night left the city shell-shocked.
Late Thursday, after about 400 people had been brought out of the Taj hotel, officials said it had been cleared of gunmen, but they later said two to three more were still inside with about 15 civilians.
Early Friday, Thamburaj, the security official, said at least one gunman was still alive inside the hotel and had cut of electricity on the floor where he was hiding. Shortly after that announcement, another round of explosions and gunfire were heard coming from the hotel.
On Friday, India's foreign minister pointed an accusing finger across the border at rival Pakistan.
"According to preliminary information, some elements in Pakistan are responsible for Mumbai terror attacks," Pranab Mukherjee told reporters in the western city of Jodhpur.
"Proof cannot be disclosed at this time," he said, adding that Pakistan had assured New Delhi it would not allow its territory to be used for attacks against India. India has long accused Islamabad of allowing militant Muslim groups, particularly those fighting in the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir, to train and take shelter in Pakistan. Mukherjee's carefully phrased comments appeared to indicate he was accusing Pakistan-based groups of staging the attack, and not Pakistan itself.
Earlier Friday, Pakistan's Defense Minister Ahmed Mukhtar, in Islamabad, denied involvement by his country: "I will say in very categoric terms that Pakistan is not involved in these gory incidents."
Indian home minister Jaiprakash Jaiswal said a captured gunmen had been identified as a Pakistani and Patil, the Maharashtra state official, said: "It is very clear that the terrorists are from Pakistan. We have enough evidence that they are from Pakistan."
Neither provided further details.
Pakistan's government said Friday that it will send its spy chief, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shujaa Pasha, to India to help probe the attacks.
The gunmen apparently came to Mumbai by boat, and Indian forces expanded their investigation to the sea. Authorities stopped a cargo ship off the western coast of Gujarat that had sailed from Saudi Arabia and handed it over to police for investigation, said Navy Capt. Manohar Nambiar.
They also stopped a cargo ship that had come to Mumbai from Karachi, Pakistan, but released it when nothing suspicious was found on board.
The British government, meanwhile, was investigating whether some of the attackers could be British citizens with links to Pakistan or the disputed Himalayan territory of Kashmir, a British security official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of his work.
The gunmen were well-prepared, apparently scouting some targets ahead of time and carrying large bags of almonds 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," an unidentified member of India's Marine Commando unit told reporters, his face wrapped in a black mask. He said the men were "very determined and remorseless" and ready for a long siege. One backpack they found had 400 rounds of ammunition inside.
He said the Taj was 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, adding that hotel was a grim sight. "Bodies were strewn all over the place, and there was blood everywhere."
A U.S. investigative team was heading to Mumbai, a State Department official said Thursday evening, speaking on condition of anonymity because the U.S. and Indian governments were still working out final details.
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.
These attacks were more sophisticated — and more brazen.
They began at about 9:20 p.m. with shooters spraying gunfire across the Chhatrapati Shivaji railroad station, one of the world's busiest terminals. For the next two hours, there was an attack roughly every 15 minutes — the Jewish center, a tourist restaurant, one hotel, then another, and two attacks on hospitals. There were 10 targets in all. |
So glad they were able to get Moshe Holtzberg out and to his grandparents safely.
Admin - November 28, 2008 08:28 PM (GMT)
*SevenSeven of 3* - November 29, 2008 09:01 PM (GMT)
noone knows who's responsible for the attacks in India, we have to wait and let the history develop and soon enough we will know for sure ! :)
| QUOTE |
| Three days after the Mumbai attacks, it is unclear who is behind them. And that in itself tells a story. |
The Mumbai Perpetrators Showed Combat Training
Who's behind attack in India? AP AP – A suspected terrorist is seen with a rifle outside the Chatrapati Shivaj Terminal railway station in …
Three days after the Mumbai attacks, it is unclear who is behind them. And that in itself tells a story.
Terrorism experts have been all over television and the Internet speculating on the identity of the perpetrators, more often than not attempting to divine their identity from the group's tactics. The problem is that terrorists do not follow rule books; they learn and adapt from other groups. The fact that suicide bombers did not blow themselves up in the lobbies of the Oberoi or Taj hotels does not mean they are not from al-Qaeda. (See photos of the chaos in Mumbai)
What we should be certain of, though, is that the Mumbai attackers were combat trained. You do not sustain a military assault for three days, taking only combat naps, unless you know what you are doing. You have to have been shot at before. You cannot be intimidated by flash-bang grenades, or commandos fast-roping down the side of a building. And it is almost certain that the planners of the attack understood that the only way to get into India with the amount of weapons and explosives used in the attacks was by sea - the risk of smuggling them in over land was too great.
Indulging in the same sort of speculation as the terrorism experts, I would say it's likely the attackers picked up their combat experience in Afghanistan. They could have come out of Iraq as well, but Mumbai seems a little far afield for Iraqis. Again, at this point none of this is certain. We may find out the killers were Hindu extremists, or Tamil separatists.
There are two lessons we should be taking away from Mumbai. The first is that all large cities are vulnerable to attack. Even if it doubled the size of its police force, there is no way New York City could could ever protect its hotels, schools or other public buildings from attacks of this type, short of turning them into fortresses. There is no way for the NYPD to prevent a car bombing on Wall Street, sending the stock market into an even worse plunge, or a single suicide bomber from blowing himself up in the subway. Plans are available on the Internet for making bombs like these with ingredients available in hardware stores.
The second reminder we should take from Mumbai is that the longer the wars go on in Iraq and Afghanistan, the more combat-experienced men there will be available to planners of terror attacks. And we should count on the veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan going global - there is no reason they could not blend into the waves of immigrants crossing the Mediterranean from Northern Africa to Europe every day.
The best answer to the attack on Mumbai is a measured one: If it turns out the attackers came from Pakistan, they are very unlikely to have been sent by that country's government. So the last thing India should do is confront the government of Pakistan, or isolate it. That would only strengthen the hand of the extremists.
View this article on Time.com
Admin - November 29, 2008 10:14 PM (GMT)
| QUOTE (*SevenSeven of 3* @ Nov 29 2008, 03:01 PM) |
noone knows who's responsible for the attacks in India, we have to wait and let the history develop and soon enough we will know for sure ! :)
| QUOTE | | Three days after the Mumbai attacks, it is unclear who is behind them. And that in itself tells a story. |
|
We don't know who specifically as in what group, but it's blatantly clear they were Muslim extremists given that they were targeting Americans, Europeans, and Jews.
renatasib - November 29, 2008 10:56 PM (GMT)
| QUOTE (Admin @ Nov 29 2008, 04:14 PM) |
| QUOTE (*SevenSeven of 3* @ Nov 29 2008, 03:01 PM) | noone knows who's responsible for the attacks in India, we have to wait and let the history develop and soon enough we will know for sure ! :)
| QUOTE | | Three days after the Mumbai attacks, it is unclear who is behind them. And that in itself tells a story. |
|
We don't know who specifically as in what group, but it's blatantly clear they were Muslim extremists given that they were targeting Americans, Europeans, and Jews.
|
Such a Shame for India...but this is my bet too...We can only hope this is not a start for something bigger...and that the resp for this can be punished...wich I very doubt...anyway...let put some hope up! :(
*SevenSeven of 3* - November 29, 2008 11:11 PM (GMT)
| QUOTE |
| We don't know who specifically as in what group, but it's blatantly clear they were Muslim extremists given that they were targeting Americans, Europeans, and Jews. |
well that much it's ovious ! but excuse my curiosity ! I want to know more ,who are they ? why any of them committed suicide or blown themself up ? where do they from ? they seem to have combat training more sophisticated than al-kaeda ! who train them ? how they where able to do this ? anyway, like i said I want to know more and little by little we will learn more,hopefuly !! :)
Admin - November 30, 2008 12:44 AM (GMT)
Some reports are claiming they're possibly from Pakistan. We'll see on that I guess.
*SevenSeven of 3* - November 30, 2008 01:45 AM (GMT)
LostSoul - November 30, 2008 06:13 AM (GMT)
| QUOTE (Admin @ Nov 29 2008, 07:44 PM) |
| Some reports are claiming they're possibly from Pakistan. We'll see on that I guess. |
This situation makes it very difficult for American policy makers...
India has been a long time ally in that part of the globe...And, right now, Pakistan is our biggest supporter against such islamic insurgents...
So, we're kinda in a bad place as the situation winds down...
But, I honestly believe that, despite their long standing animosities...Pakistan is not guilty of such an overt and malicious act...After all, they've been striking against such terrorists as part of the US/Nato actions in that area...
I think that this new terrorist group; is using such hostilities to their advantage.
While I sympathize with India...We must all keep a clear head and follow the facts...Not our bigotries...
I guess only time will tell...
Admin - November 30, 2008 05:41 PM (GMT)
Well I was just reading that India says one of the men they captured were Pakistani. Now India is considering ending their cease-fire agreement with Pakistan and considering taking action against them. With India as an ally and our views on Pakistan growing increasingly negative due to their harboring of terrorist groups, if India goes to war, have no doubt we'll be right there with them. Crazy times.
*SevenSeven of 3* - November 30, 2008 08:35 PM (GMT)
| QUOTE |
| "Ajmal Qasab has received training in a L-e-T training camp in Pakistan, |
| QUOTE |
| "Lashkar-e-Taiba is behind the terrorist acts in the city," Maria told reporters. "The terrorists were from a hardcore group in the L-e-T." |
Police: Pakistani militants behind Mumbai attacks
Buzz Up Send
Talwar Badam, Associated Press Writer – 2 hrs 1 min ago Play Video AP – Police:
Pakistani militants behind Mumbai attack
India, Saturday, Nov. 29, 2008. … MUMBAI, India – The only gunman captured by police after a string of attacks on Mumbai told authorities he belonged to a Pakistani militant group with links to the disputed region of Kashmir, a senior police officer said Sunday.
India has blamed "elements" from Pakistan for the 60-hour siege during which suspected Muslim militants hit 10 sites across India's financial capital, leaving at least 174 dead.
Joint Police Commissioner Rakesh Maria said the assailant now in custody — the only one of 10 to survive — told police the group had intended to hit even more targets.
"Lashkar-e-Taiba is behind the terrorist acts in the city," Maria told reporters. "The terrorists were from a hardcore group in the L-e-T."
A day after the siege ended, authorities were still removing victims bodies from the five-star Taj Mahal hotel, where three gunmen made a last stand before Indian commandos killed them in a blaze of gunfire and explosions.
A previously unknown group called Deccan Mujahideen — a name suggesting origins inside India — has claimed responsibility for the attacks. But suspicion in Indian media quickly settled on Lashkar-e-Taiba, long seen as a creation of the Pakistani intelligence service to help wage its clandestine war against India in disputed Kashmir.
India's Home Ministry could not be immediately reached for comment. The minister resigned Sunday under growing criticism of the government's failure to prevent the attacks.
In the wake of fresh accusations, Pakistan reiterated its demands that India produce evidence.
"This is only an allegation. We have demanded evidence of the complicity of any Pakistani group," said Farhatullah Babar, a spokesman for President Asif Ali Zardari. "We will take the strictest action against any group or individual ... if India provides us the evidence."
But Maria said only that the suspect confessed his links to Lashkar during interrogation.
"Ajmal Qasab has received training in a L-e-T training camp in Pakistan," he said. "Our interrogation indicates that the terrorists had other places that they also intended to target."
He declined to offer any other details.
Earlier, a United States counterterrorism official had said some "signatures of the attack" were consistent with Lashkar and Jaish-e-Mohammed, another group that has operated in Kashmir. Both are reported to be linked to al-Qaida.
Lashkar was banned in Pakistan in 2002 under pressure from the U.S., a year after Washington and Britain listed it a terrorist group. It is since believed to have emerged under another name, Jamaat-ud-Dawa.
In April 2006, the U.S. Department of State listed Jamaat-ud-Dawa as terrorist organizations for being an "alias" of Lashkar-e-Taiba.
Amid concerns India's accusations of Pakistani involvement will ratchet up tensions between the nuclear-armed rivals, the Washington sent FBI agents to help with the probe. President George W. Bush pledged full U.S. support for the investigation, saying the killers "will not have the final word."
Speaking earlier Sunday, a spokesman for a Jamat-ud Dawa denied any link to Lashkar-e-Taiba and said he condemned the attack.
"We condemn the killings of civilians. We condemn such killings in a terrorist activity, and at the same time we condemn it happening in the shape of state terrorism, as we see in Srinagar, Kashmir," Abdullah Muntazir said, referring to alleged Indian army atrocities in Kashmir, which is claimed by both Pakistan and India.
India's top security official, Home Minister Shivraj Patil, resigned Sunday as a chorus of criticism about the government's handling of the Mumbai attacks grows louder.
"Our Politicians Fiddle as Innocents Die," read a headline Sunday in the Times of India newspaper.
On Sunday, the Taj, a waterfront landmark popular among foreign tourists and Indian high society, was surrounded by metal barricades, its shattered windows boarded over.
"We have been to two funerals already," Mumbai resident Karin Dutta said as she placed a small bouquet of white flowers for several friends killed in the hotel. "We're going to another one now."
The death toll was revised down Sunday from 195 after authorities said some bodies were counted twice, but they said it could rise again as areas of the Taj Mahal were still being searched. Among the dead were 18 foreigners, including six Americans. The dead also included Germans, Canadians, Israelis and nationals from Britain, Italy, Japan, China, Thailand, Australia and Singapore.
___
Associated Press writers Chris Brummitt and Asif Shahzad in Islamabad contributed to this report from Islamabad, Pakistan and Ashok Sharma contributed from New Delhi.
LostSoul - December 1, 2008 11:33 PM (GMT)
| QUOTE (Admin @ Nov 30 2008, 12:41 PM) |
| Well I was just reading that India says one of the men they captured were Pakistani. Now India is considering ending their cease-fire agreement with Pakistan and considering taking action against them. With India as an ally and our views on Pakistan growing increasingly negative due to their harboring of terrorist groups, if India goes to war, have no doubt we'll be right there with them. Crazy times. |
Well...He claimed that he was trained in Pakistan...
A terrorist; bent on sowing the seeds of dissent and suspicion; claims that India's most ancient of enemies; was responsible for the attacks...Gee, he's someone to trust. *
*sarcasm
Seriously; I'd hardly take "his" word for it...If there's real evidence; I'm sure that the FBI will find it...
Then; we'll know what's what...
Madam Tampini - December 2, 2008 08:42 AM (GMT)
China is siding with Pakistan, and we are siding with India. This could get messy if they so choose to make it that way. We talked about this in my Sociology class today mainly because my professor is Indian, her parents are from India and lived through the split between the different religions/countries. There are a lot of people who don't know that Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh were all one country, then the British occupation ceased, and the largest human migration ever took place. The Muslims were forced out of India and in to Pakistan, and the Hindus were forced out of Pakistan and in to India (I don't recall which religion was forced to Bangladesh), an estimated 14 MILLION, that's 14,000,000 people were forced to relocate.