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Indian forces kill last gunmen in Mumbai

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-11-29 12:02

Photographers run past burning Taj Mahal Hotel during a gun battle in Mumbai November 29, 2008. [Agencies]

MUMBAI -- Indian commandos killed the last remaining gunmen holed up at a luxury Mumbai hotel Saturday, ending a 60-hour rampage through India's financial capital by suspected Islamic militants that killed 195 people and rocked the nation.

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Orange flames and black smoke engulfed the landmark 565-room Taj Mahal hotel after dawn Saturday as Indian forces ended the siege in a hail of gunfire, just hours after elite commandos stormed a Jewish center and found six hostages dead.

"There were three terrorists, we have killed them," said J.K. Dutt, director general of India's elite National Security Guard commando unit.

Some 295 people were also wounded in the violence that started when more than a dozen assailants attacked 10 sites across Mumbai on Wednesday night. Fifteen foreigners were among the dead.

Dutt told reporters outside the hotel his forces would continue to search and clear it. A major in the commandos was killed in the final assault, he said.

Some hotel guests were still believed to be in their rooms. "They are still scared, so even when we request them to come out and identify ourselves, they are naturally afraid," said Dutt.

Outside, anxious relatives stood in groups hoping family members trapped inside would walk out. Many had been keeping a vigil since the attack began.

With the end of one of the most brazen terror attacks in India's history, attention turned from the military operation to questions of who was behind the attack and the heavy toll on human life.

The bodies of New York Rabbi Gavriel Noach Holtzberg and his wife, Rivkah, were found at the Jewish center. Their son, Moshe, who turned 2 on Saturday, was scooped up by an employee Thursday as she fled the building. Two Israelis and another American were also killed in the house, said Rabbi Zalman Schmotkin, a spokesman for the Chabad Lubavitch movement, which ran the center.

Authorities scrambled to identify those responsible for the unprecedented attack, with Indian officials pointing across the border at rival Pakistan, and Pakistani leaders promising to cooperate in the investigation. A team of FBI agents was ordered to fly to India to help investigate.

On Friday, commandos killed the last gunmen inside the luxury Oberoi hotel, where 24 bodies had been found, authorities said. Dozens of people were evacuated from the Oberoi earlier Friday.

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