[USMMA_83]

Trying to get access to indian news website...all clogged....

[zarf]

Hindu prayers up. Better yet hundreds of prayers up to the dozens of individual gods who deal with this sort of thing.

[tallhappy]

Almost two years after 911 and we still do not take these islamofasicsts seriously enough.

Will it take blasts here in the US again?

[wolfman]

Amazing how other religions always bury the ruins of their holy sites under Islamic mosques isn't it?

[tictoc]

Bombay is mostly Muslim. Could be "internecine warfare". Please keep us posted.

[Caipirabob]

Prayers out there fast. These people have been savaged by the Islamo-fascists.

[Gorons]

CNN is reporting now ...

Multiple blasts rock Mumbai

NEW DELHI, India (CNN) --A series of near simultaneous blasts have shaken India's financial capital, Mumbai, leaving at least four people dead and more than 35 injured, police say.

One of the blasts occurred near the colonial-era Gateway to India monument -- a famous landmark and popular tourist attraction.

Other blasts struck in or close to one of the city's main Hindu temples and outside the main central railway station, Chhatrapati Sivaji Terminus, also known as Victoria Terminus.

Bomb squads have been rushed to the scenes of the explosions, police officials told CNN.

The Gateway to India is also situated close to one of Mumbai's top hotels, the Taj Mahal.

Sources in Mumbai, formerly known as Bombay, say police have moved quickly to place the city under virtual lockdown ensuring no one can leave or enter the city.

Security forces in the city have been on high alert following a series of bomb explosions on buses across the Mumbai metropolitan area over the past several months.

The most recent bus bombing took place on July 29, killing four people on board a packed commuter bus in the commercial heart of the city.

Police at the time said they suspected the attack was carried out by a militant group, the Lashker-e-Taiba -- one of two Islamic militant groups that New Delhi says was behind an attack on the Indian parliament in December 2001.

In 1993, a wave of bombings hit several buildings in Mumbai, killing at least 250 people and injuring dozens more.

Those blasts were blamed on underworld gangs seeking to avenge Muslim deaths during Hindu-Muslim riots following the destruction of a mosque in the holy city of Ayodhya in northern India.

[visualops]

Bombs Kill at Least 40 in Bombay, Wound Scores
Mon August 25, 2003 06:00 AM ET
BOMBAY, India (Reuters) - Bombs exploded in India's financial capital Bombay on Monday, killing at least 40 people and wounding scores, some seriously, police said.
It was not immediately clear who planted the bombs, one of which exploded near the historic Gateway of India, a crowded monument in the tourist heart of the city.

The blasts follow a thaw in relations between Pakistan and India, which has accused its neighbor in the past of harboring Islamic radicals it blames for previous attacks on its territory.

Police official S.K. Tonapi told Reuters 40 people had been killed and at least 125 wounded.

"Everyone over here is pretty shaken," said an employee of the luxury Taj Mahal Hotel, which stands beside the brown sandstone arch that is the Gateway of India.

"At least four or five people were injured -- their legs and hands bleeding. Two or three guys were unconscious. They were all mainly street peddlers," the employee, who declined to be named, told Reuters.

"There are remnants of a taxi lying around, such as the front of the taxi and the tires, right in front of the old Taj."

The key Bombay Stock Exchange index fell over 3 percent on the news, while the National Stock Exchange index fell more than 3.5 percent.

The rupee also weakened to 45.8850/9050 to the dollar from 45.8450/8550.

A state home ministry official told Reuters there had been four blasts around the city, but could not confirm that all were bombs.

Police said there were at least two bombs, one of which was near the Gateway of India, the other near a Hindu temple.

Last year, nuclear-armed India and Pakistan had one million troops staring at each other across their border in the disputed Kashmir region, and relations were frozen.

That standoff followed a bloody December 2001 attack by Islamic radicals on India's federal parliament in New Delhi.

Mainly Hindu India blamed the parliament attack on Pakistan-based militants fighting for independence in Indian-ruled Kashmir, its only Muslim-majority state.

SIGNS OF A THAW

Signs of a thaw emerged in April when Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee said he wanted to make a final personal bid for peace with Pakistan.

Confidence-building measures such as the restoration of a suspended bus link between Pakistan and India in July bred goodwill across the subcontinent.

Talks on restoring air links had been planned for this week.

But a constant refrain from India has been that Pakistan has to do more to curb Muslim radicals launching cross-border raids into Kashmir.

Bombay has been hit by a series of deadly bomb attacks in recent months.

The attacks revived grim memories among Bombay residents of a wave of blasts in the city in March 1993 that killed 250.

Those blasts, in 13 places within 90 minutes of each other, were blamed on groups avenging Muslim deaths in Hindu-Muslim riots following the razing of a mosque at Ayodhya in northern India.

"The front windows of the downstairs restaurants of the Taj are shattered and some of the rooms on top, too -- all shattered," the hotel employee said of the latest blast.

Speedboats and yachts often cluster in the waters of the bay across the street from the Taj, but authorities have warned the vessels to stay away, the employee added.

"Authorities have sent all those cruising yachts out to sea and they're sending signal flares to all the big ships not to come into the bay," she said.

In December a bomb blew off the rear of a bus, killing three people in Bombay and wounding 26.

In March, a bomb blew apart a packed rush-hour train killing 12 people and wounding 75.

In July, a bomb ripped through a Bombay bus, killing two people and injuring 42.

[Mr. Mojo]

Just read another article that said "religious conflict cited as cause." Religious conflict? Why not just tell it like it is -- Islamic terrorism.

[Charles Henrickson]

HUGE BOMB blast in Bombay (Mumbai)!!!

Shouldn't that be:

HUGE MUMB blast . . .

[headsonpikes]

Islamic Evangelism bump - 'Bringing the Good News of Allah to Infidels Everywhere!'

;^)

[swarthyguy]

Scum aimed for tourist trade by targeting Colaba area.