Mumbai siege may be finished; Commandos say last militants dead

MUMBAI, India — Indian commandos took control of the Taj Majal hotel this morning, ending three days of terror that left 195 dead and 295 wounded and has shaken India and raised tensions with neighboring Pakistan.

The lengthy assault at the Taj left three terrorists dead and sections of the venerable hotel in flames, the head of the commando unit said in a televised news conference. Soldiers were still searching the hotel for any remaining gunmen, but the siege appeared to have ended just before 9 a.m., police said.

In a sign that the hostilities were over, firefighters were permitted to begin pouring water over the huge flames that had burned out of control for as much as an hour while the commandos continued to battle the terrorists.

Most of the dead from the attacks at multiple sites around the city were apparently Indian citizens, but at least 22 were foreigners.

As myriad accounts emerged of the carnage, a vigil over the fate of a rabbi from Brooklyn and his wife, who ran the Jewish center, ended in a commando raid and, finally, with news of the couple's deaths.

At the Oberoi hotel, where 30 bodies were found, authorities said two gunmen had been killed and 93 foreigners — some in Air France and Lufthansa uniforms — had been rescued.

Exhausted survivors offered harrowing accounts of being trapped on upper floors of the high-rise hotel while gunmen prowled below. Indian forces said they had recovered two AK-47 assault rifles, a 9-mm pistol and grenades.

India's foreign minister openly blamed "elements in Pakistan" for the attacks. U.S. intelligence and counterterrorism officials said Friday there was mounting evidence that a Pakistani militant group — Lashkar-e-Taiba, which has long been involved in the conflict with India over the disputed territory of Kashmir — was responsible.

Indian authorities were beginning to face sharp questions about why operations to flush out the remaining assailants had not moved more rapidly.

And many other basic questions remained in a crisis that unfolded so publicly, on televisions, Web sites and Twitter feeds across the world. Who were the attackers? The police tally was at least eight killed and one captured alive, but could so few militants have caused such mayhem? How had they managed to plan and coordinate such an operation and then fight off commandos for so long?

Indian commandos said the attackers at the hotels were well-trained, with one carrying a backpack with hundreds of rounds of ammunition, and they seemed to know the buildings' layout better than security forces, indicating a high degree of preparation and sophistication. Some were seen arriving by boat; others may have been guests at the hotels for days.

The leader of a commando unit involved in a gunbattle Thursday inside the Taj said during a news conference Friday that he had seen a dozen bodies in one of the rooms.

His team found a gunman's backpack, which contained dried fruit, 400 rounds of AK-47 ammunition, four grenades, Indian and American money and seven credit cards. The pack also had a national identity card from the island of Mauritius, off Africa's southeastern coast.

The attackers were "very, very familiar with the layout of the hotel," said the commander, who disguised his face with a scarf and tinted glasses to hide his identity.

He said the militants, who appeared to be under 30 years old, were "determined" and "remorseless."

The U.S. State Department reported that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had called President-elect Obama twice to brief him.

The U.S. officials cautioned that they had reached no hard conclusions about who was responsible for the attacks. An FBI team was being sent to Mumbai to assist with the forensic investigation.

As the day progressed, Indian authorities kept up a steady stream of accusations aimed at Pakistan, raising fears of new tensions between the countries, nuclear-armed powers that have fought wars in the past.

R.R. Patil, the home-affairs minister of Maharashtra state, where Mumbai is located, said the assailant who had been captured alive was a Pakistani citizen.

Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee said early evidence explicitly pointed to Pakistan's involvement.

Pakistan seemed anxious to defuse the mounting crisis in relations. Discussions about sending a representative of the country's powerful Inter-Services Intelligence Agency to India were under way.

Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said India and Pakistan should join hands to defeat a common enemy, Reuters reported, and he urged New Delhi not to play politics over the attacks.

Information about numbers of dead and injured in this report was provided by The Associated Press.