india? you heard about the attacks?

MUMBAI: Terror struck the country's financial capital late on Wednesday night as coordinate serial explosions and indiscriminate firing rocked eight Mortal remains of a taxi after terror attack at western express highway near domestic airport in Mumbai. (PTI Photo)

areas across Mumbai including the crowded CST railway station, two five star hotels--Oberoi and Taj. ( Watch )

At least 80 people were dead and 250 injured in the terror attacks, hospital sources said.

Two terrorists were still inside the Oberoi Hotel and commando operation was on.

Two terrorists were killed at Chaupatti in Mumbai, police said.

Terrorists hijacked white police jeep near Metro cinema in South Mumbai .

Firing was also reported near Maharashtra state assembly building in South Mumbai.

Armed with AK-47 rifles and grenades, a couple of terrorists entered the passenger hall of CST and opened fire and threw grenades, Mumbai General Railway Police Commissioner A K Sharma said.

The terror strike which began at 10:33 PM at Chhatrapathi Shivaji Terminus(CST), formerly known as the Victoria Terminus(VT), claimed 10 lives in the premises of the station alone, police said.

Three persons were killed in a bomb explosion in a taxi on Mazegaon dockyard road and an equal number were gunned down at Taj Hotel. The victims in the hotel were its employees.

The lobby of the Oberoi hotel was on fire and the hotel evacuated, eyewitnesses said.

Maharashtra DGP A N Roy said tonight's attack in "at least seven places" is a "terror strike."

Sharma said 30 persons were injured in the CST incident. Commandoes were rushed to the CST which wore a deserted look and train services suspended.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh is cutting his Kerala visit and returning to Mumbai. He described the situation in Mumbai as "very serious".

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has condemned terror attacks in Mumbai and assured Maharashtra government of all assistance.

The NSG commandos were on standby and national disaster response force unit is being rushed to Mumbai, the Ministry of Home Affairs officials said.

Some people were injured in the firing in Oberoi hotel, and taken to a nearby hospital in police vans and ambulance. Firing was also reported in Taj hotel.

Firing was reported at Colaba, Nariman Point and near Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminal, formerly Victoria Terminus and it was still continuing.

Firing was also reported at Cama Hospital in south Mumbai, police said, adding that a blast was reported in a taxi under a flyover in suburban Vile Parle. A bomb went off in a taxi in Mazegaon dockyard road.

SRPF personnel then entered the iconic BMC building -- just opposite CST -- to take aim at the assailants, BMC commissioner Jairaj Phatak said. "We fear some of the assailants are still inside the station and we want to catch them if they come out," a police official said.

Vikhroli police station senior inspector Habib Ansari was on his way to work from his Colaba home when he saw two armed men, with sophisticated weaponry, trying to run into bylanes near the Gateway of India.

"I rushed back to Colaba and all policemen, including GRP and RPF personnel, were called up," he added.

Bhisham Mansukhani, a journalist, was attending a wedding reception at the Taj's Crystal Room. "I was inside the bar when glass shards almost hit my eye," he said. "More than 200 people were escorted inside Chambers, a business centre inside the hotel," he added.

Mumbai

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/Scores-reportedly-killed-Mumbai-attacks/story.aspx?guid=%7BF234388E-AD4F-4BF5-9E8A-E33F54EABECD%7D


SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- A series of coordinated bomb and gun attacks on Wednesday night in Mumbai, India's financial capital, have claimed dozens of lives while sowing chaos and confusion.
Local news organizations reported at least 80 people were killed and 250 injured in the attacks, which occurred in seven locations including two luxury hotels and one of the city's main railway stations.
CNN reported that gunmen are holed up in the city's swanky Taj hotel and Oberoi hotel, and are locked into gun battles with police. There have been five shootouts and two grenade attacks, according to the news station's report.
Additional attacks were reported at Cama Hospital, CNN reported.
The attacks appear to be centered on locations popular with foreign visitors, according to an online report on Bombaynews.net, while most of the injured are policemen. An attacker is believed to be holed up in the railway station, where thousands have been evacuated, according to the report.
The online edition of The Wall Street Journal quoted Mumbai police commissioner A.N. Roy as saying the police are treating the attackers as terrorists who "opened fire indiscriminately."
In addition, an explosion was reported near the city's Taj Mahal hotel. Gunshots were fired at the Leopold Restaurant, which is popular with foreign visitors, according to reports.........





Al Jazeera:

Deaths in Mumbai 'terror' attacks



Police stand guard after armed men struck inside a railway station in Mumbai [Reuters]





At least 80 people are reported to have been killed and 250 wounded in a series of shootings across the Indian city of Mumbai, police have said.

"It seems to be a terrorist attack, many places are under siege by gunmen," A.K. Sharma, a Mumbai government railway police commissioner, told a local television station on Wednesday.

Attacks were launched on about eight places in Mumbai, India's main financial centre, police said.

Armed men opened fire on a crowded Mumbai train station, a restaurant popular with tourists and several luxury hotels.

"They entered the passenger hall of the station and started firing," Sharma said.

"The terrorists have used automatic weapons and in some places grenades have been lobbed. The encounters are still going on and we are trying to overpower them," A.N. Roy, a senior police officer, said.

'Westerners held hostage'

Police said at least ten people were taken to hospital following the shoot-out outside the city's main Chhatrapati Shivaji railway station and the nearby Leopold restaurant in the Colaba district.

One police officer said many places were under siege by gunmen.

Three members of staff were shot dead at the luxury Taj Mahal hotel in Colaba district, the Press Trust of India reported.

Westerners were also being held by armed men at the venue, according to media reports.

"They wanted anyone with British or American passports," one eyewitness at the hotel told the NDTV Indian news channel. "They wanted foreigners."

Another three people died in a bomb blast in a taxi in the south east of the city.

'Serious attack'

One woman, who gave her name as Souad, escaped an attack on the Oberoi hotel in the city.

She told Al Jazeera: "We heard no alarms, nothing. My husband opened the door and we couldn't see outside - it was so dark with all the smoke - we couldn't breathe.

"We were on the 17th floor of the hotel and we used towels to protect ourselves and then ran and got a taxi and then we just drove as far away as we could."

Speaking from Mumbai, Al Jazeera's Riz Khan said: "This was a serious attack by people armed with AK47s.

"The police were taken by surprise ... they are not equipped for this type of attack, which would have been organised as it struck several areas at once.

"There are people still trapped inside the rail terminal."

"Seeing these two major landmarks - the Taj Mahal and Oberoi hotels - on fire is psychologically damaging for people in India and is comparable to the affects the September 11 attacks had on Americans in 2001."

'Nowhere safe'

He said landmarks and heavily populated areas had come under attack.

Police said there were reports of shootings in other parts of the city, including some in five-star hotels.

Al Jazeera's Matt McClure said: "There was at least five attacks - the largest on a Mumbai railstation and there were three on large, luxury hotels. Several dozen people have been wounded.

"It seems clear what the intent is here - to sow fear and leave people worried and thinking 'nowhere is safe'.

Police have cordoned-off the areas, while TV channels said guests at the nearby luxury Taj Mahal hotel in Colaba had been warned to stay indoors or not to return.

Co-ordinated attacks

India has witnessed a series of co-ordinated attacks in recent months.

A little-known Islamic group, the Islamic Security Force-Indian Mujahedeen, claimed responsibility for serial blasts last month in which 80 people died in India's northeast state of Assam.

A total of 12 explosions shook the northeastern state, six of them ripping through crowded areas in the main city of Guwahati.

Six weeks earlier, the capital New Delhi had been hit by a series of bombs in crowded markets that left more than 20 people dead, the attacks were claimed by a group calling itself the Indian Mujahedeen.


http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2008/11/2008112617472965818.html

Not the Taj! :-( Sat there many a time, with friends, or reporting to a2k. sad and terrifying news.

damnit im missing so much in the world, violence aside..

i need to find a way to travel for free across the world.


maybe hiding on ships, yay.

hah..

I have friends living close to the Taj. Hoping they're OK.

Want to bet they're Islamists?

they're not targeting hindus this time, but brits and americans, at least according to the first reports. i don't want to bet about anything with anyone. over 80 people died, this is not some fun competition.

Not a reason to think they are not Islamists

Come down from your high horse. Of course this isn't a competition and it certainly isn't fun.

Listening to NPR news right now. Nothing new beyond what's already been posted here.

Btw, Finn, is your guess that the attackers might be Muslims supposed to be somehow relevant to something here?

Isn't the identity of the prepetrators and their motives always relevant?

You can work your passage OGI.

Before you go any further you should get down to the library and find out how to do it. Frank Harris: My Life and Loves. At least you'll find out whether it's your cup of tea and if it isn't you can stop chafing at the bit about travelling the world, with aplomb, and settle down in a leafy suburb with the girl you love and have two lovely children and a nice dog. (I stole that from a Doris Day movie. Or an ad.)

Your rejection of the lower-middle-class miasma in favour of adventure, which the tourists caught up in the difficulties in India presumably share, is as a result of you never considering just how nice the lower-middle-class miasma, wherin one adventures on TV from a comy sofa, out of the glare of the mid-day wrinklemaker, can actually be.

Once your sap has gone down I mean like mine has. One has to prepare for that. It's a lengthy period. No pain, no gain they say.

Don't forget that the music in the exotic holiday ads is not playing when you get there. And the ladies in those ads are specially chosen for the promise they seem to offer to a greenhorn.

THE TIMES OF INDIA REPORTS :




read full report :
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/

Don't listen to Spendius, O.G. He's just bitter because he's never been anywhere past his local pub. If you want to travel and see far-off places, do it. If you have to thumb your way across country and work your way across oceans on a merchant ship, do it. And do it while you're still young. If you keep putting it off because you feel you can't afford it, you'll never do it. You'll never be able to afford it. Being responsible and paying your bills and taking care of business is highly overrated as a proper way to live. Being a middle-class family man in the suburbs, a responsible citizen and all that crap, frankly, sucks.

i was responding to your "do you want to bet"...which struck me odd, to be polite.

i have good friends living near the Taj and don't know how/where they are. so you know where you can shove your high horse... you're certainly not in my top 100 priorities right now.

From the Economist:

hope your friends are ok daggy

NPR reports that the Taj Mahal Hotel is burning; at least, flames are shooting through the roof. NPR says that some six or seven sites are being attacked and that it seems to be a consolidated, well-coordinated effort. Leopold's Restaurant, the two hotels and the main railway station (the former Victoria Station) are all under attack, as well as a hospital. No claims of responsibility yet and the authorities don't have aany firm suspects/

live stream coverage.

http://ibnlive.in.com/videos/video_streaming.php

My condolences and commiserations to all those caught up in this latest event.



He's not doing it OGI. He's having a vicarious trip.

And I have travelled a fair bit. All around the middle-east. Baazaar in Damascus. The Gut in Malta when the US fleet was in. I've met tribesmen. Not to be trifled with.

All horrible. I ached so much to kiss the English Rose I had lined up who had told me in long letters how well she was doing in cookery lessons and how she was knitting me a scarf, and emboidering some handkerchiefs with our initials, to pass the time in my absence, a few proper pints in a proper setting, and one of my Mum's rice puddings, that I kissed the tarmac in the pouring rain at the bottom of the stairs off the plane 200 miles from where she lived. With feeling. The two of us vowed never to leave England ever again. It's as easy to keep as a celibacy vow. And it forces you to like what you've got, which isn't difficult with what we've got, or else be a miserable git.

T.S. Eliot, an American who fled, said that one should try a chap if one wishes to be adventurous.