Mumbai attacks kill at least 101

Western hostages taken in coordinated strikes

NEW DELHI -Teams of gunmen attacked three luxury hotels, a hospital, a train station, a movie theater, and other buildings in Mumbai late last night, killing at least 101 people and wounding 280 in a rampage through the heart of India's financial capital, police said. The attackers took dozens of people hostage, and witnesses said they were seeking out Americans and Britons.

The gunmen, armed with explosives, laid siege to two of the hotels all night. Troops stormed in to rescue people, some of them foreign nationals, trapped inside. The 105-year-old Moorish-styled rooftop dome of the landmark Taj Mahal Palace & Tower hotel was engulfed in fire, and flames billowed out of many rooms. One wing of the waterfront hotel was gutted. Seven hours after the first attack, firefighters rescued more than 50 hotel guests and escorted them to ambulances.

The attacks occurred in the affluent southern quarters of the financial district of this city of 15 million people. Hospitals were overwhelmed and sent out appeals for blood donations. Police said parts of the city remained under siege today. Guests were still trapped inside the 36-floor Oberoi Trident hotel, possibly as hostages. Commandos tried to storm the hotel, and police battled the gunmen as hotel guests signaled to firefighters from their room windows. The third hotel to be attacked was the Ramada, to the north.

Gunfire still continued at the Taj Mahal and Oberoi hotels at dawn today.

The identity of the attackers was not clear. A group calling itself the Deccan Mujaheddin asserted responsibility for the attacks in e-mails. Intelligence officials said they thought it was a new group and were unsure of its aims or identity. The purported group's name apparently refers to the Deccan Plateau, an area that spans eight states and covers much of central and southern India. The term "mujaheddin" suggests the attackers are Muslim extremists.

R.R. Patil, chief of internal security for the state of Maharashtra, said the gunmen came from the sea around 9 p.m. local time Wednesday, and a rubber boat laden with explosives was later seized by police. About 9:25 p.m., eyewitnesses told reporters, two men with automatic weapons started firing outside the popular Leopold Cafe, then the attackers moved toward the Taj Mahal hotel, firing at random. One team moved to the city's main train station. Local trains were suspended after a high-security alert, and the police cordoned off the area, which is usually packed with night revelers at street food vendors and cafes.

The hotel evacuated many guests, some of whom could be seen wheeling out their luggage. Others fled down the fire escape in bathrobes.

Witnesses told reporters that the gunmen initially asked for Americans and Britons. "They were young boys, maybe 20-25 years old. They basically were saying they wanted anyone with British and American passports," said a Briton quoted by the Times Now television channel. "There were about 15 people, about half of which were foreigners. We went to the 18th floor. It became very smoky, and we escaped and ran down the stairs. They were in jeans and T-shirts. Just normal, casual."

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.

"They were talking about British and Americans specifically," he recounted. "There was an Italian guy, who, you know, they said, 'Where are you from?' and he said he's from Italy, and they said, 'Fine,' and they left him alone. And I thought: 'Fine, they're going to shoot me if they ask me anything' - and thank God they didn't," he said.

Chamberlain said he managed to slip away as the patrons were forced to walk up stairs, but he thought much of the group was being held hostage.

Some guests of the Taj Mahal, including two members of the European Parliament who were visiting on a trade delegation, remained in hiding in the hotels, making desperate cellphone calls, some of them to television stations, describing their ordeal.

Sajjad Karim, 38, a British member of the Parliament, told Sky News: "A gunman just stood there spraying bullets around, right next to me."

Before his phone went dead, Karim added: "I managed to turn away, and I ran into the hotel kitchen, and then we were shunted into a restaurant in the basement. We are now in the dark in this room, and we have barricaded all the doors. It's really bad."

Officials today said six attackers were killed, and nine suspects detained. Eleven policemen, including the chief of Mumbai's counter-terrorism squad, Hemant Karkare, died in the fighting at the hotels.

Since May, a wave of bombings has ripped through public places in several Indian cities, killing more than 200 people. Some of the bombings were followed by claims of responsibility from a group calling itself the Indian Mujaheddin.

"Who they are is a matter that is still under investigation, because our first priority is to rescue the people trapped inside the two hotels. We do not have correct knowledge about how many people are still trapped," said Vilasrao Deshmukh, the chief minister of Maharashtra at a press conference in Mumbai, formerly known as Bombay. He denied that foreign nationals were specifically targeted. "It is not right to say that they were only targeting foreigners. Most of the people killed were Indians."

In Washington, US intelligence officials were closely monitoring developments in India while analysts studied the attacks for signatures of known terrorist groups. The starting assumption was that the attacks were linked to Islamic extremists, though not necessarily Al Qaeda or other well-known groups.

"The sophistication of the attacks and the choice of targets put Islamic extremists at the top of the list," said a senior US counterterrorism official. "They are the most natural suspects."

But the official noted that the Indian government has been targeting numerous groups, some of which have mounted suicide attacks against public buildings. "It is still an unfolding situation, and any hard and fast conclusions would be premature," said the counterterrorism official, who insisted on anonymity because he was not cleared to talk about the events.

Private intelligence analysts noted that the attacks were markedly different from others that have occurred in India in recent weeks. Those attacks involved planted explosives detonated by remote control and were aimed at soft targets such as religious temples, markets, and train depots. By contrast, the attackers last night chose relatively harder targets - hotels - and were essentially suicide missions, they said.

State Department deputy spokesman Robert Wood said US officials were not aware of any American casualties, but were still checking. He said he could not address reports that Westerners might be among the hostages.

"The United States condemns this terrorist attack and we will continue to stand with the people of India in this time of tragedy," White House press secretary Dana Perino said. "President Bush offers his condolences to the Indian people and the families of the innocent civilians killed and injured in the attacks."

Material from the Associated Press and New York Times was used in this report.