Mumbai Massacre: 'Put your hands up if you are British,' gunmen tell terrified travellers

India's financial capital, Mumbai, was rocked by a series of gun attacks and blasts last night that targeted luxury hotels and restaurants – and especially British and American visitors. At least 80 people were reported to have been killed and up to 250 injured.

Police said they were still besieging two gunmen who were holed-up in one of the five-star hotels. They said the "terrorists" had struck at least seven locations with a combination of automatic rifles and grenades. At one location, the gunmen had apparently been searching for British and American travellers to take hostage. Reports last night suggested that several hostages were still being held.

"These are terrorist strikes in at least seven places. Unknown terrorists have gone with automatic weapons and opened fire indiscriminately," said A N Roy, head of the Maharashtra state police. "At a few places they even used grenades."

In a shootout with one terrorist gang, three senior policemen, including Hemant Karkare, the head of Mumbai's anti-terrorist squad, were killed.

Among the targets of the attack were the Taj and Oberoi hotels in south Mumbai. Television images showed the lobby of both hotels on fire and people being evacuated from the Oberoi with their hands on their heads. At the Taj, one of India's most famous hotels, some of the injured were evacuated using its golden luggage carts.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, or indication of the identity of the attackers, but the targeting of American and British visitors implied that the co-ordinated raids had been mounted by an extreme Islamist group.

Alex Chamberlain, who works for a sports website and was in the city on business, told Sky News that gunmen had burst into Oberoi hotel's restaurant and pushed diners upstairs. He said he believed they were looking for British and American visitors.

"They told everybody to stop and put their hands up and asked if there were any British or Americans. My friend said to me, 'Don't be a hero, don't say you are British'," said Mr Chamberlain. "I am sure that is what this is all about. They were talking about British and Americans specifically."

The British MEP Sajjad Karim, who is in India for a summit, was in the Taj hotel when it was also attacked by gunmen. Speaking by mobile phone from a barricaded basement room, he told reporters that he and others had fled from machine-gun fire.

"I was in the lobby of the hotel when gunmen came in and people started running. There were about 25 or 30 of us," said the Conservative MEP. "Some of us split one way and some another. A gunman just stood there spraying bullets around, right next to me.

"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've barricaded all the doors. It's really bad."

Janice Sequeira, a tourist who had been at a restaurant in the Taj, said: "It was really scary. It was like the sound of loud crackers, not one but several, we just ran out of there."

Television new channels also reported shooting outside the Cafe Leopold, a popular restaurant for tourists, and at hospitals and railway stations. Again, automatic rifles had been used, and at least one hand grenade thrown. "They entered the passenger hub of a station and started firing," said AK Sharma, a Mumbai police official. In the aftermath, the restaurant was riddled with bullet holes and there were bloodstains on the floor, and shoes discarded by fleeing customers.

There were also reports of either firing or blasts in one of the city's hospitals. But amid the flurry of fast and furious reports, that had not been confirmed by police or hospital authorities last night. An explosion close to the city's domestic airport was also reported.

India has witnessed a series of terror attacks in recent months. In May, at least 80 people were killed by a volley of blasts in the tourist city of Jaipur. In July, about 50 were killed by a series of explosions in the western city of Ahmedabad. Last month, about 60 people died in Assam, in India's north-east, in similar circumstances.

But last night's attacks in Mumbai – a combination of grenades and automatic weapons – mark a new and deadly milestone in India's continuing battle against extremists.

Most of the attacks have been blamed on Muslims but, in recent weeks, police have rounded up 10 members of what they say is its first Hindu terror cell. Among those arrested are a serving army officer and a Hindu priest.

Mumbai itself has been hit repeatedly by terrorist attacks since March 1993, when Muslim underworld figures linked to Pakistani militants allegedly carried out a series of bombings on Mumbai's stock exchange.

Those attacks killed 257 people and wounded more than 1,100. Ten years later, in 2003, 52 people were killed in Mumbai bombings blamed on Muslim militants and in July 2007 a series of seven blasts ripped through railway trains and commuter rail stations, killing about 190 commuters.

Terrorism 911 style or Mumbai style can NOT be stopped by increasing security. It is impossible to have a armed security guards at every street corner, in every hotel corridor, in every restaurant, in every shopping mall, in every cinema house etc. There are thousand different places vulnerable to terror attacks. To attempt to do that is a gross waste of tax payer money with zero return.

That is very true. Increased security, while nice to have, cannot stop terrorist attacks. The thing about terrorists is that they only have to get through once, while we have to try and stop them every time. Thus I totally agree with that.

It is plain why US has not been attacked while UK, Spain, India, and others have been attacked. It is NOT because we have outstanding security. The reason US is not attacked because the countries fear George Bush. They saw what happened to Taliban regime and Saddam regime. Until other countries take similar approach towards terror, terror attacks will continue ad nauseum.

While I agree that nations need to take a no-nonsense approach to terror and terrorism, I disagree with the premise that the reason the US has NOT been attacked is because they fear George Bush. No, they do not. Their adherence to the 'will of Allah' is far greater than their 'fear' of a US president. Also, terrorism (like most basic forms of 4g warfare) does not require a state-sponsor. One is nice to have (either through logistical support, e.g. Pakistan; or technical support, e.g. how Iran was helping out with IEDs; or even geographical support, e.g. how Al Queda had a base in Afghanistan). However, they do not need it. They can easily be non-state actors, with bases in places like the United Kingdom (the UK is actually the largest Western base for Islamic terrorism).

Now, the reason why nations like Spain and India and what-not have been attacked by Islamic terrorists, while the US has not, is PRIMARILY because those countries are EASILY ACCESSIBLE by terrorists. Not only do they have huge national populations of muslims (e.g., India has more Muslims than there are in Pakistan), but they are also exceedingly porous. Look at Western Europe for instance ...not only do they have native populations of radicalized Islamic loci (e.g. Britain, which has a sizeable locus of radicalized Muslims, many of them 2nd and 3rd generation muslims born and bred in Britain), but it is all too easy for foreign-born radicals to get inside.

The US does not face that problem, due to the fact that there are huge oceans separating the nation from the rest of the world. Sure, there is an illegal migration problem from Mexico, and there are a few cases of Coyotes being paid up to US$ 50,000 to smuggle people through (no undocumented tomato picker is paying that money for a low-wage job ...those must be people with 'greater purposes'), but it is still a major impediment to terrorists.

Meaning what? Well, meaning that you will not see the type of attacks you see in Europe and India in the US. A Jihadi group is not going to send teams over, just so that they blow up one AMtrak train or spray bullets in a terminal (unless it is a MAJOR coordinated attack that is several times bigger than the Mumbai incident, and even then there are more efficient ways of doing it). Terrorist attacks on 'Halo' targets like the US will be a) large, b) spectacular, and c) cost effective. Al Queda and its scum brethren will not send 15 men to shoot up a place. They are going to send 15 men to set off a WMD attack on a major city. All these reasons are why the US does not get hit as much as Europe/India does, and also why when the US does get hit the attacks are different from the Europe/India model. For instance, if there is a WMD attack, it is more likely to be against the US than it is against India/Spain/etc.

Do you think for 1 minute that if India was willing and capable of demolishing the Pakistani military and the secret service ISI along with it’s government similar to what was done to Saddam regime, once it was proven that the Mumbai attacks were planned and supported in Pakistan, that it would ever have happened?

There is a major difference between 'willing' to do something and being 'capable' of doing something. Furthermore, there is a major difference between doing what was done to Saddam in Iraq, and doing the same to Pakistan. Pakistan is the world's greatest threat from a nation-state (larger than Iran even), and no one seems willing to take action. Not India, and not the US. Why? Well, because it would quickly go nuclear. If the world has done nothing about North Korea, and if even doing anything against Iran seems to be met with resistance, how do you expect India to go and 'take care' of Pakistan if the US itself is not willing to (and moreover was WORRIED that India may just take such action). It sounds good typing it out, but actually applying it in the real world is a different story.

Every terror plan needs a base to operate from for planning and training. The only way to stop terror is to put fear of 72 virgins in the minds of heads of state who are willing to give aid and comfort to terrorists. To waste money on security is declaring victory for the terrorists. President Bush has kept us safe and God bless him for that.

President Bush did a good job on anti-terror. I think he failed on almost everything else (e.g. immigration, economic policy, etc), but no one should shake a finger at him on terror. Thus I agree with that.

I also agree that there are several countries that help and assist terrorism. The major four (in order) are Pakistan (logistics and an indoctrination base), Saudi Arabia (financing), the United Kingdom (yes, Britain ...mostly due to its growing base of young radicals with British passports, plus the every-growing financing rings to Islamic charities formenting there), and Iran (e.g. some level of technical assistance, particularly to the Iraqi-based Alqueda groups). We can definitely squeeze some of these countries, although I don't know how effective 'words' would be. Action is something else, but I don't think any of the above will be attacked any time soon (not even Iran, sadly). Finally, terrorists can easily switch into full-time non-state actors, based on places like Britain and other soft Western nations. E.g., there seems to be more active Jihadis operating out of Britain than Pakistan (this is obviously not the case, just hyperbole on my part, but there are sure a lot of Jihadis in the UK).

Anyways, in conclusion I think the only time the world will wake up is when there is a major terrorist attack using WMDs on a major Western power. There are only 4 options that would lead to the appropriate response ....either a WMD attack on the US (Uncle Sam will then wake up and smite those scum), or Russia (there is a reason the Chechens, when they left a dirty bomb in gorky park, called the authorities to tell them where it was before it went off ....you don't nuke the Bear and expect nothing), and finally France (yup ...the so called surrender monkeys people like mocking here. The French may have weak politicians, but their judges have the strongest anti-Islamic radical laws in the West, and their military is quite capable and no-nonsense. A nice case I like bringing up is when they sent frogmen to sink a Greenpeace ship that was protesting against their nuclear tests). Obviously the fourth is Israel ...a proper WMD attack on Israeli soil would be met with a response that would scare Allah out of a Mullah.

Apart from that happening, terrorism will continue as it is now. You will hear of attacks in Europe and Asia, mostly the usual bombings and bullets. Then, someday, you shall wake up to see a major attack on American soil. That is what the Jihadi are working on ...they will not waste time and (especially) resources in sending 15 men on a spray-and-pray mission to the US. They'd rather spend that time and resources sending 15 men, separated into 5 teams of 3, with a WMD package of some sort to 5 US cities. That is more 'efficient' from a Jihadi scum point of perspective.

The worst thing we can do is become complacent. You can be sure our enemies are not. Even as India and Europe burn, you can be certain that that Islamic filth is prepping for something larger in the Continental United States.

And all we can pray is that the security forces manage to intercept and stop it. However, the terrorists trying that is a certainty.

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