Shiv, the Deccan Mujaheddin has claimed responsibility, does not seem like a Buddhist Group.shiv wrote:Can you point me to any news that says that they are Muslims? Any names?sampat wrote:Indian Imams should issue a fatwa that these dead terrorists should be buried with pigs, depriving them of their virgins.
It seems the Foreign MSM is going over the top with their reporting. If this attack is important only because Terrorists were targeting Brits and Yanks, how come the city’s largest train station, a movie theater and a hospital were the targets as well?
New York Times
NY times BlogsEven by the standards of terrorism in India, which has suffered a rising number of attacks this year, the assaults were particularly brazen and drastically different in scale and execution. The attackers used boats to reach the urban peninsula where they hit, and their targets were sites popular with tourists.
Alex Chamberlain, a British citizen who was dining at the Oberoi, told Sky News television that a gunman had ushered 30 or 40 people from the restaurant into a stairway and, speaking in Hindi or Urdu, ordered them to put up their hands.
Attackers had also entered Cama and Albless Hospital, according to Indian television reports, and struck at Nariman House, which is home to the city’s Chabad-Lubavitch center. Israel’s Foreign Ministry said it was trying to locate an unspecified number of Israeli nationals missing in Mumbai, according to Haaretz.com, the Web site of the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.
Unlike previous attacks in India this year, which consisted of anonymously planted bombs, the assailants on Wednesday night were spectacularly well-armed and very confrontational.
Television reports showed the charred shell of a car in front of Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, formerly Victoria Terminus, the mammoth railway station. A nearby gas station was blown up. {This does not seem to be targeting Foreigners}
The Honolulu AdvertiserUpdate | 10:14 p.m. SAJA Forum, the Web site of the South Asian Journalists Association, is now hosting a live discussion about the attacks. Among the guests is Suketu Mehta, who wrote “Maximum City: Mumbai Lost & Found”.
Update | 9:53 p.m. NDTV is currently conducting a live cell-phone interview with a guest trapped in the Taj hotel named Deepak. The anchor asks him if he wants to send a message to his loved ones, but he says that he has been speaking to his family himself.
The samples Mr. Shachtman quotes — “Hospital update. Shots still being fired. Also Metro cinema next door,” tweets mumbaiattack. “Blood needed at JJ hospital,” adds aeropolowoman, supplying the numbers for the blood bank. — are among the more newsy. What is striking is how Twitter blends together accounts from people who have real, even first-hand information, and notes from people who are watching TV or reading the Web and passing on second or third-hand accounts.
Lastly, I would request Moderators/Admins to please the change the Title of this thread from "Firing/Attack in Mumbai" to something more appropriate.LAT: Attack timing took advantage of lax security
By Mark Magnier and Subhash Sharma
Los Angeles Times
MUMBAI, India — Terrorism experts said the late-evening timing of the Mumbai attacks offered several potential advantages for the attackers.
Security is generally more lax at that hour, as businesses prepare to close. There’s less traffic in the congested city, making it easier to position a large number of attackers at disparate sites. And it allows the story to hit news cycles in Europe and North America, with global publicity a key objective among terrorists hoping to undermine stability and spread fear.
Local government officials said as many as four attackers were killed and nine arrested. An unknown group calling itself the Deccan Mujahideen claimed responsibility, but experts cautioned that the claim could be a hoax.
Witnesses said the attackers fired automatic weapons apparently at random and made no effort to hide their identities. Experts said this suggested the attackers were prepared to die.
Police released a picture of a man with a serene smile wearing a blue T-shirt and holding an automatic weapon whom they identified as one of the attackers at the railway station.
At the Taj Mahal Palace hotel, firefighters used their trucks to help people out of windows as others battled blazes on the roof. Bystanders used ornate gold-colored luggage trolleys to transport bodies out of the lobby.
“I guess they were after foreigners because they were asking for British or American passports,” said Rakesh Patel, a Briton who lives in Hong Kong and who was staying at the Taj Mahal hotel on business, according to Reuters. “They had bombs.”
The attack comes at a sensitive time for India and the region. Five Indian states are holding elections now, and a national vote is expected early next year. The opposition Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party has accused Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s Congress Party of being soft on terrorism.
It also comes amid improved relations between India and the new Pakistani government led by President Asif Ali Zardari.
“The enemy of all terrorists is moderation,” said Bruce Hoffman, a professor with Georgetown University’s Security Studies Program in Washington. “They want to put harder-line parties in power. The oxygen they breathe is polarization and enmity.”The U.S. and British governments, among others, condemned the attacks.
Los Angeles Times staff writer Magnier reported from Beijing, and special correspondent Sharma from Mumbai.
