MUMBAI, India, Nov. 30, 2008
Police: Pakistan Group Behind Mumbai Siege
Lone Surviving Gunman From Terror Attacks That Killed 174 Said To Claim Membership In Lashkar-e-Taiba
-
-
People place petals and touch the photographs of slain policemen at a prayer meeting to pay tribute to Mumbai's policemen who lost their lives in the recent terrorist attacks, Sunday, Nov. 30, 2008. (AP Photo/Gautam Singh)
-
Fire engulfs part of the Taj Hotel in Mumbai, India, Nov. 27, 2008. (AP Photo/Gautam Singh)
-
-
Play CBS Video Video Looking For Answers Following the massacre in Mumbai, officials lowered the death toll to 174 and the only surviving attacker claims to belong to a Pakistani militant group. Celia Hatton has more.
-
Video Mumbai: Behind The Attacks Authorities believe the terrorists who laid siege to Mumbai, India came to the city in rubber rafts, possibly from a hijacked fishing boat. Mark Phillips reports.
-
Video Mumbai Violence Ends India is left picking up the pieces and looking for answers after almost 200 people died in the Mumbai terrorist attacks. Celia Hatton reports.
-
Fast Facts India Learn about the people, economy and history.
Police have said 10 gunmen terrorized Mumbai during a 60-hour siege, and all but one were shot dead.
Joint Police Commissioner Rakesh Maria said the assailant now in custody told police the group had intended to hit more targets during their attacks on India's financial capital that left at least 174 dead.
"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."
India's Home Ministry could not be immediately reached for comment.
The group has long been seen as a creation of the Pakistani intelligence service to help wage its clandestine war against India in disputed Kashmir.
Police arrested the lone surviving militant, Ajmal Qasab, and Maria said he 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."
Maria declined to offer any other details.
As investigations continue into one of India's deadliest terrorist attacks, pressure is mounting on the Indian government to account for what went wrong, reports CBS News correspondent Celia Hatton.
Two top security officials have already resigned. India's Prime Minister has also vowed to boost the size of the country's anti-terrorism forces, which face criticism for arriving at the scene long after the gunfire began.
Indian newspapers report their government had been warned of a possible attack by sea and many are now questioning why that intelligence was ignored. Two local fishermen noticed the attackers coming ashore and were suspicious.
"They were carrying schoolbags on their shoulders and two handbags probably carrying ammunition and AK 47 guns," a fisherman explains.
Officials now believe Westerners weren't the only targets in the attacks, Hatton reports. Instead, it is thought the gunmen wanted to kill as many people as possible, no matter their nationality.
Many witnesses have said the gunmen were remarkably calm. Newspaper photographer Sebastien D'Souza followed militants operating in the train station, taking photos throughout.
"This is where I got the picture of the two and they exchanged some couple of words and then the guy dropped his bag," syas D'Souza, with the Mumbai Mirror. "I think it was empty there was no amo in it - he dropped his bag and then moved forward and kept firing from the hips, never raised the gun, very cool."
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 Qaeda.
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.
The Pakistani government offered no immediate response.
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 the disputed Kashmir region.
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.
Despite India's claim, Pakistan's ambassador to the United States, Husain Haqqani, said, "I don't think that this is the time for India or anybody in India to accuse Pakistan. It's time to work with Pakistan. Pakistan is now a democracy. India is a democracy. And as two democracies, we need to strengthen each other, rather than fall into the trap of the terrorists, who want us to fight with each other so that they can get greater strength."
India repeatedly has accused Pakistan of complicity in terrorist attacks on its soil, many of which it traces to militant groups fighting Indian rule in the divided Himalayan territory of Kashmir. The U.S. has tried to persuade Pakistan to shift its security focus from India, with which it has fought three wars, to Islamic militants along the Afghan border.
President-elect Barack Obama told Time magazine in an interview in October that "Kashmir in particular is an interesting situation ... that is obviously a potential tar pit diplomatically." He spoke of devoting "serious diplomatic resources to get a special envoy in there to figure out a plausible approach."
When asked if that sounded like a job for former President Clinton, Obama replied, "Might not be bad" and that they had spoken about the issue when they had lunch in September in Clinton's New York office.
Seeking Answers
The battle of Mumbai lasted three days; it may take a lot longer than that to piece together exactly how it was planned and carried out, and by whom, says CBS News correspondent Mark Phillips.
Throughout the multiple attacks and the response of government troops, the rumors flew like bullets - some true, some not.
Battles flared up, literally. Some were declared over and then flared up again. As the smoke has cleared, though, some of the basics seem clear:
This terror came from the sea. Rubber boats were apparently used to ferry the attackers ashore, possibly from an Indian fishing boat which was reported hijacked.
Once ashore, the attackers fanned out toward their planned targets, all closely grouped in Mumbai's commercial heart.
First to the train station, where they fired indiscriminately at people on the crowded concourse. Then, on to one of the city's landmark restaurants where they also opened fire.
The intent in both these attacks was simple: To cause carnage and confusion. And security experts like Will Geddes say, the attackers knew exactly what they were doing.
"Certainly the intelligence that I have been speaking to in India has indicated that they had professional training," Giddes told CBS News. "They may even be former soldiers themselves."
That training came into play again at the next major targets, Mumbai's two best-known hotels, the Oberoi and the Taj Mahal, and a center run by a New York-based Orthodox Jewish sect, Chabad Lubavitch. Here the intent seemed to be not just to kill but to take hostages.
"Anyone who had a British or American passport they wanted to know," one witness said at the scene. "They were after foreigners."
(AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)
At the Jewish center, an American rabbi and his Israeli- born wife were among the hostages. Their two-year-old son was somehow smuggled out.
Commandos made their assault from a helicopter. They killed the attackers but found the hostages dead.
Indian officials say all this was managed by only ten attackers, a number security experts like Geddes find difficult to accept.
"I can't see how nine simultaneous attacks across the city within the scope of 30 minutes could be achieved by a ten-person team," he said.
As the funerals have begun, the hard questions are being asked, including the biggest question of all: Is this the first wave of a new kind of terrorism?
Security analyst Crispin Black told CBS News, "I think this is going to change things. You want to be a suicide bomber, put a pack on your back and go blow yourself up on an underground train, or do you want to go down in a blaze of glory? It's a sad and sinister thing to say but I think we need to look out for this in the future."
The first view of the future may have been during 60 bloody hours this past week in Mumbai.
Prayers After 60 Bloody Hours
On the first Sunday since terrorists attacked Mumbai, hundreds gathered to pray. Memorials and funerals took place for some victims of the attacks.
In Mumbai, a special memorial service was held for police officials killed. At least three top Indian police officers - including the chief of the anti-terror squad - were among those killed.
Other residents of Mumbai also began cremating their dead.
The journalist community in the Indian capital also gathered in large numbers on Sunday to bid farewell to the well-known scribe and food critic Sabina Sehgal Saikia who lost her life.
Saikia was cremated in New Delhi after her body was found on the gutted 6th floor of the Taj Mahal hotel on Saturday. She had been trapped in the hotel after gunmen stormed the building and she had been sending messages to her husband until midnight on Wednesday.
The death toll, officially 174, included many foreigners. Six Americans died in the carnage, but officials now believe Westerners weren't the main targets, reports CBS News correspondent Celia Hatton.
It's thought they wanted to kill thousands of people.
(AP Photo/Saurabh Das)
Still, many question why more isn't being done to secure the city.
At the city's main train station, more than 40 people died in a shower of bullets. Metal detectors at the doors weren't enough to stop two men from walking inside with hand grenades and AK-47 rifles.
Two top security officials submitted their resignations, but that might not appease public anger, says filmmaker Simone Ahuja:
"People are frustrated. They're asking their politicians what's going on and what are they going to do to improve the situation."
Mumbai is reawakening. Weddings are happening again, but a pall lies heavy over the city, as so many questions remain unanswered.
© MMVIII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
More From World
Best-selling author Mitch Albom on his first nonfiction work since "Tuesdays with Morrie."
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- next
See all 77 CommentsIn the late 1930s, the Palestinian leader, the Grand Mufti, led a widespread insurrection with the intention of driving the Brits and Jews out of the Palestine mandate.
After he`d suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of teh Brits, the Grand Mufti fled to Berlin, where he remained as Hitler`s guest for the entire duration of WWII.
While there, as Rommel`s Afrika Korps advanced eastwards across North Africa towards the Middle East, he helped Adolf Eichmann design, and choose the sites for, Auschwitz-style Jew extermination camps in Palestine and adjacent countries.
Fortunately, Montgomery`s British 8th Army sent Rommel into a tire-screeching U-turn at El Alamein in Egypt, so Jews in the Middle East were saved from the same fate as their European counterparts.
PALESTINIANS were NAZIS WITHOUT SWASTIKAS then.
PALESTINIANS are NAZIS WITHOUT SWASTIKAS now.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Malegaon_blast_suspects_goal_was_to_make_India_a_Hindu_Rashtra/articleshow/3761377.cms
They (group behind the terrorist) were actually working to convert India into a Hindu Rashtra by 2025. "Interrogation of Sudhakar Dwivedi alias Dayanand Pandey, who is in police custody till December 1, has revealed that the group was working to create an `Aryavarta Rashtra'' in India,'''' an Anti-Terrorism Squad official said. "They wanted to make India like what it was when it was ruled by the Aryans; their dream was to convert the country into a Hindu Rashtra and an Akhand Bharat,'''' an official said. The suspects planned to infiltrate government departments everywhere in the country with like-minded people and then convert India from a secular country into a Hindu Rashtra, officials said. "They had also planned their life in exile if their conspiracy was foiled and they happened to be ousted by the government.
For the past many weeks, the biggest story in India was involvement of Indian Military Intelligence officers in orchestrated acts of terrorism against Muslims to create a Hindu-Muslim riot situation as well as to create a justification for war against Pakistan. Many Indian army officers were caught and Indian Police was forced to work deeper into finding more BJP, Bajrang Dal and RSS terrorists in Indian military and Intelligence setup. This story had created a serious panic in Indian military and their Fascist patrons in Hindu Zionists. Something had to be done to divert the attention of the world and Indian public from acts of terrorism by Hindu Hardliners. .....Then comes the Mumbai Massacre. Even when the shootings were going on in hotels, Indian media and army were blaming Pakistan for the attacks. The game is clear and sinister. The Indian Intelligence have diverted the global attention towards another issue where they would blame Pakistan for this slaughter and use Barack Obama''s doctrine of attacks on Pakistan to encircle Pakistan from both sides.
When Hitler came to power, one of his first acts was the elimination of his political opponents -- Socialists, Communists, Marxists, Trotskyites, labor leaders and other left-wingers.
Next, he turned his attention to the people he considered the greatest threat to the purity of his glorious German master-race.
It wasn`t the Jews.
Or the gipsies.
Or homosexu@ls.
No, it was the feeble-minded and mentally-retarded.
Idiots, imbeciles, half-wits, simpletons, morons and cretins.
People just like you, MikeTotten1.
Makes sense to me.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted by MikeTotten1 at 03:07 AM
Do you, racist? I haven''t seen one of your comments as relevant to this article. In fact, you keep posting the same comment over and over again in many different articles.
You already posted that. What kind of mental sickness makes you post the same dribble over and over again?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted by brianwwb at 02:45 AM
YAY! Brian! I am glad to see you point out the obvious of this nut. He throws out anything willy nilly and makes it out like it was fact. All day long! If one counters him, he just minimizes it with calling zionist rhetoric.
I found a few posters on Al Jazeera News that agree with you; this is one of them.
Evidently this is yet another Zionist conspiracy. Ther Zionists may number 6 million, but their power to control the US, the Middle East, the Russians the Chinese and even the powerful Lithuanians is amazing to watch. All the worlds suffering is directly because of them. These six million people must be super-beings to be able to control us all, how else can you explain the fact that they can control 6 billion people and all the evils in the world. I think we should all surrender to their superiority!!. Ok, so how many of you bought that ***.. Raise your hands... and give up your minds, cause you have been duped!!
Reasonable, Ottawa, Canada
Despite your anti-Israel Arab propaganda, in the end, I can assure you, you and your Muslim pals lose.
Question is, are you going to wait that long, or are you going to repent and come to know the Truth first?
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- next
See all 77 Comments