 Britain's most prominent Muslim businessman, who was trapped inside a burning hotel in the Mumbai terror attacks, is calling on the government to toughen measures against extremist preachers. Sir Gulam Noon, one of Labour's most generous donors, says the door is being left open for foreign imams to radicalise thousands of young Muslims in mosques. His demand comes in an exclusive interview on the anniversary of the attacks, which left 173 people dead after three days of mayhem. Noon was trapped on the third floor of the Taj hotel for nearly 10 hours while dozens of people were murdered in rooms around him. Known as the Curry King for selling 1.5 million Indian ready-meals a week in Britain, he says the experience has left him less tolerant of foreign Islamist preachers, who he believes are indoctrinating young British Muslims. "Having seen what I saw at close quarters, the indiscriminate violence and pain inflicted in the name of my religion, I am astounded that I hear from friends in the community that radical preachers are still coming to this country and praising attacks by al-Qaida and suicide missions. There is a limit to free speech. Extremists who preach their approval of suicide bombers should be sent back to their country of origin," he said. Noon, 73, who was born and raised in Mumbai, said his ordeal last year began as he stepped into the lift of the five-star hotel to go up to his third-floor suite to meet his brother and four colleagues for dinner. Behind him he heard a few sharp cracks, but thought nothing of it. "I heard what I believed were firecrackers from a wedding party. But a minute later a member of staff ran over and told me it was gunfire," he said. Noon and his friends were told by staff to barricade themselves in. It was 9.30pm, and they would not emerge until 7am the next morning. By the time the shooting was over, on 29 November, 173 people had been killed and 308 had been wounded. Noon, who has given more than £300,000 to Labour, said he is proud of the way that India's Muslim community has responded to the attacks. "Indian Muslims have refused to bury the nine dead terrorists. They are still in the mortuary. It is a good symbolic message for the rest of secular India. Now Britain needs to get tough with the radical imams. We have the power to do something," he said. A spokesman for the UK Borders Agency said the government has introduced new laws to force imams to go through tougher English tests before being allowed into Britain. The Observer 
Mumbai is preparing to mark the first anniversary of last November's horrific attack, carried out by at least 10 armed men at several locations around the city. The bombings and shootings that left 166 people dead and hundreds wounded not only horrified Mumbai's residents, but also revealed a security vacuum in India's financial capital. Dan Nolan takes a look back at how the attacks unfolded. Al Jazeera
 Italian police say they have arrested two Pakistani men accused of providing logistical support for last year's deadly attacks in Mumbai. The two, father and son, were detained during an early-morning raid in Brescia, police in the northern Italian city said on Saturday. The suspects managed a money-transfer agency and helped fund the November 26 attacks, police said in a statement. The day before the attacks, they transferred money to activate an internet phone account that was used by the attackers and their accomplices, Stefano Fonzi, the head of anti-terror police in Brescia, said. The attacks in India's economic capital killed at least 166 people and left another 300 injured. Ten men are believed to have carried out the 60-hour assault. New Delhi and Washington blamed the siege on Lashkar-e-Taiba, a banned Pakistan armed group. Italian police began the investigation in December after being alerted by the FBI that the money had been sent from Italy, Fonzi told The Associated Press news agency. The funds were transferred under the identity of another Pakistani man who had never been in Italy and was not involved in the alleged crimes, he said. The two are accused of aiding and abetting international terrorism as well as illegal financial activity. Transferring funds using the identity of other people was a common practice at the Brescia agency, Fonzi said in a telephone interview. Two more Pakistanis were arrested in Saturday's raids for allegedly committing fraud and other crimes using the same system, but they were not linked to the Mumbai attacks. A fifth Pakistani man escaped arrest and was still being sought. India has repeatedly called on Islamabad to charge the founder of Lashkar, Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, with masterminding the Mumbai attacks. New Delhi has been demanding action against Saeed and other Pakistan-based fighters before it will resume a formal peace process. Pakistani police announced in September that Saeed would be arrested for propagating jihad and collecting funds for a charity he heads. Mohammed Ajmal Kasab, the sole surviving suspect, told a court in Mumbai in July that he was one of the attackers. He gave details of his group's journey from Pakistan on a boat, their subsequent landing in Mumbai, and the rampage that followed as they shot and killed people at a railway station, a Jewish centre and two five-star hotels, including the iconic Taj Mahal. Al Jazeera
 I. Ten Gunmen, Ten Minutes Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST) hummed with the foot traffic of late commuters. Under hulking steel rafters, held over from the British colonial era, the PA announcer issued final calls for departing suburban trains as they lurched away one after the next, packed with passengers.
Long-distance travelers, mostly the poor North Indian migrants who flock to the city by the tens of thousands, took up benches and spots on the concrete floor, resting on sheets of newsprint with their piles of luggage. Fongen Fernandes, the spry fifty-three-year-old manager of the upper level of the Re-Fresh snack bar with its tall glass panels overlooking the platforms, was talking to a graphic designer.
Fernandes stood admiring the designer’s digital handiwork on a laptop open at a table in the far corner of the restaurant, when he felt sand-like debris sprinkle the top of his head. “What’s this?” he said to himself. He wiped his smooth pate a couple times and continued talking, unaware that below two young men had emerged from a bathroom abutting Platform 13 and begun spraying the crowd with gunfire, unaware that a high-velocity bullet shot from less than thirty yards away had missed him by inches and lodged in the wall over his shoulder.
He bid the designer farewell and was halfway down the stairs when another series of rounds cracked against the wall and showered sparks into the air. A grenade exploded on the platform. Rattled by the sudden chaos, Fernandes scrambled back upstairs, cut the lights, and ducked behind some advertising placards that were pasted to the base of the snack bar windows. He instructed everyone to slide belly-down and hide behind a bank of metal food warmers. One woman started to scream. He motioned for her to shut up. When she wouldn’t, Fernandes threw his handkerchief to a waiter who held it to her mouth. “Don’t let go of her,” he said. Fernandes stole a look at the scene below. Bodies lay scattered on the station floor, slicked in blood. The gunmen scanned and swiveled. They shot from the hip, in steady bursts. The shorter, stocky one, Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab, wore beige cargo pants and a blue t-shirt with VERSACE printed in white on the chest; the other, Ismail Khan, was slimmer and wore all black. Both carried rucksacks. On any other day, Fernandes would have taken them for college boys on their way home. These were no students, though. The ease with which they wielded their weapons amid the panic betrayed a professional’s mien. Two more volleys lashed into the snack bar. One hit Mukesh Aggarwal, a co-worker in charge of the ground level, in the stomach. Fernandes, a devout Catholic, started to pray in the dark. “St. Anthony, please deliver us . . .” 9:40 P.M. Leopold Café.Two young men—one named Abu Shoaib, the other known simply as Nazir—got out of a yellow and black city cab across the street from the Leopold Café. Open since 1871 in the heart of the Colaba district, the multi-level dive was packed with more than a hundred people enjoying western food and cheap pints of Kingfisher beer to the din of rock music that spilled onto the sidewalk, where hawkers plied t-shirts and offered hash to foreign backpackers. Co-owner Farhang Jehani stepped out to take a phone call. He watched the pair of young men pay the cab fare and wait by the curb, bags slung over their shoulders. Driver Fulchand Bhind was grateful for the extravagant tip the young men had given.
Unbeknownst to him, the two men had slipped a bomb, set to go off in one hour, under his seat. As Bhind pulled away, the bomb clicked silently toward detonation. How could he have known? These young men certainly didn’t look like terrorists. Jehani, across the street, assumed they were students waiting for friends.
When his call was finished, he went inside and around to the back staircase that leads to the mezzanine-level bar to watch the cricket match. India was playing England, and they were winning. Jehani’s family is part of Mumbai’s long-established Parsi community, émigrés from Iran who practice the Zoroastrian faith, but like any lifelong Indian, he is passionate about cricket. Read it all at VQR Online H/T: David F.
 The attacks began on November 26, 2008, when 10 terrorists, members of a militant Islamic group called Lashkar-e-Taiba, arrived in Mumbai by boat. Their targets included a train station, Nariman House, Leopold Café and two hotels — the Oberoi-Trident and Taj Mahal (above). For nearly three days, they exchanged fire with Indian forces; 166 people were killed. The authorities shot nine of the gunmen, and one survivor, Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab, 21, was captured. The attacks heightened Indo-Pakistani tensions; Pakistan only accepted that Kasab was a Pakistani national in January this year. The trial began in April in Mumbai. Kasab pleaded not guilty to 86 charges including murder and waging war against India, and was said to smirk throughout. In July he shocked the court by pleading guilty to some charges. “Very shrewdly, very cleverly, Kasab has tried to save his own skin by showing he was acting as a subordinate,” said the state prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam.
Last month, Kasab claimed he had no faith in the Indian courts and applied for trial in the International Court of Justice. The request was dismissed and the trial continues. Dozens of Brits were injured in the attacks — seven seriously — and one man, 73-year-old Andreas Liveras, was killed. Source: Times Online
 In a move likely to inflame an already tense relationship with Pakistan, the Indian government has revealed publicly for the first time a dossier of evidence presented to Islamabad linking the leader of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba, the group blamed for the Mumbai attacks.
The co-ordinated attacks by armed men on several locations across India's financial capital last November left at least 170 people dead and hundreds wounded.
The attacks have strained relations between New Delhi and Islamabad. Now, in an exclusive interview with Al Jazeera's Hamish Macdonald, P Chidambaram, India's interior minister, says Pakistan is "deliberately" stifling the investigation by failing to follow up on the evidence. Chidambaram produced documents detailing names, times and locations of alleged meetings involving Hafiz Saeed, the Lashkar-e-Taiba chief, and those who went on to conduct the attacks.
Pakistan has repeatedly refused to re-arrest Saeed because it says India has failed to produce convincing evidence.
Beyond that, the dossier chronicles India's efforts in recent years to persuade Pakistan to investigate suspects involved in attacks in India and to close down "terrorist training camps" inside Pakistani territory. In the final pages, India demands that Pakistan hand over "conspirators" to face trial in India and comply with its promise to stop armed groups from functioning inside its territory.
"There is enough evidence to show that, given the sophistication and military precision of the attack, it must have had the support of some official agencies in Pakistan," Manmohan Singh, the Indian prime minister, said on Tuesday. But Pakistan rejected the allegation.
"Scoring points like this will only move us further away from focusing on the very real and present danger of regional and global terrorism," Sherry Rehman, Pakistan's information minister, said in a statement to the Reuters news agency. "It is our firm resolve to ensure that nonstate actors do not use Pakistani soil to launch terrorist attacks anywhere in the world." Pakistan has said it is examining the information sent by India. Also, a Pakistani court on Saturday resumed hearing a case against the alleged masterminds of the Mumbai attacks.
Proceedings were initially launched against five men, but two more suspects have since been arrested, according to a state-run news agency report last week.
The five suspects arrested earlier and being tried are Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, a Lashkar commander, and four others - Hammad Amin, Abdul Wajid alias Zarar Shah, Mazhar Iqbal alias Abu Qama and Shahid Jameel Riaz.
The two more recently arrested men are Jameel Ahmed and Younus Anjum. Source: Al Jazeera (English)
This is Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab, caught on film as he unleashed a devastating and indiscriminate attack in Mumbai that left 166 people dead. But this picture is not the most dramatic record of that day. During the raid, the Indian intelligence services intercepted mobile phone calls between Kasab, his terrorist comrades and a mysterious handler hundreds of miles away, who issued commands to shoot civilians without mercy. These shocking tapes reveal the sinister mind control used to turn young men into killing machines - and the casual, off-hand brutality of the men who masterminded the massacre
By DAN REED | 27th June  Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab at the Victoria Terminus railway station in Mumbai during last November's terrorist attack 'Do you want them to keep the hostages or kill them?' asks Brother Wasi of someone else in the control room.
The person replies with a casual grunt, barely audible through the background babble of the news channels playing on a nearby television. At the other end of the line, 500 miles away, Akasha, a 25-year-old Pakistani, is squatting on the floor inside a besieged building in the centre of Mumbai with a murdered rabbi's mobile phone in one hand and a Kalashnikov in the other.
He knows with complete certainty that this will be his last night on Earth. For his mission to be a success, he must be killed. The two women hostages are on a bed nearby, trussed up and blindfolded. Another gunman, Umer, is dozing. Now Wasi comes back on the phone. His manner is warm and paternal - the kind of calm, commanding voice you instinctively trust. Wasi: 'Listen up...'
Akasha: 'Yes sir.'
Akasha speaks in a gentle, dopey murmur. He sounds exhausted. Wasi: 'Just shoot them now. Get rid of them. Because you could come under fire at any time and you'll only end up leaving them behind.'
Akasha: 'Everything's quiet here for now.'
Wasi: 'Shoot them in the back of the head.'
Akasha: 'Sure. Just as soon as we come under fire.'
Wasi: 'No. Don't wait any longer. You never know when you might come under attack.'
Akasha: 'Insh'Allah' (God willing).
Wasi: 'I'll stay on the line.'
There's silence for 15 seconds. No gunshots.
Akasha: 'Hello?'
Wasi: 'Do it. Do it. I'm listening. Do it.'
Akasha: 'What, shoot them?'
Wasi: 'Yes, do it. Sit them up and shoot them in the back of the head.'
Akasha: 'Umer is asleep. He hasn't been feeling too well.'
Wasi consults his associates in the control room, then comes back on the line. Wasi: 'I'll call you back in half an hour. You can do it then.'
 The Taj Palace Hotel during the raid in November 2008 This conversation, remarkable for its off-hand cruelty, was intercepted by India's intelligence agencies at 8.40pm on Thursday, November 27 last year, two days into the three-day terrorist attack on Mumbai. I first became aware of these wiretaps in January, when the Indian government released a dossier of evidence about the massacre. The dossier pointed an accusatory finger at Pakistan and included a few paragraphs of transcribed wiretaps as evidence. At the time the thought of getting hold of the audio recordings themselves seemed fanciful. This was classified material, perhaps some of the most important wiretaps ever recorded by the Indian secret services.
Yet one morning four months later I returned to my hotel room in Mumbai looking over my shoulder and clutching an almost complete set of recordings. Soon the long-dead voices were playing through my headphones. Gunmen caught on CCTV at the Taj Hotel - behind the double doors, 300 guests are sitting silently in a function room Despite the difficulties we had in obtaining the tapes, I immediately questioned whether they were genuine, as it's well known that the Indian government was keen to pin blame for the attack on Pakistan. I recognised in the recordings the voices of people I'd spoken to at length - a surviving hostage and an interpreter. Read it all here... Original Source: Mail Online UK (link no longer available).
 Alice Thomson and Rachel Sylvester | February 05
It is 20 years since Salman Rushdie published his fourth novel, The Satanic Verses, about two Indian actors, Gibreel and Saladin. Within weeks Islamist groups were accusing the writer of blasphemy and burning effigies of him in the streets. On February 14, 1989, Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa against him, calling for his death, forcing him into hiding for nearly a decade and turning him into one of the most famous authors in the world.
With hindsight, Rushdie says, he realises the fatwa was merely the prologue in a very long novel that is becoming ever more terrifying.
On September 11, 2001, one of his three favourite cities, New York, was attacked, four years later his adopted home of London was targeted by suicide bombers and last year, Mumbai, the city of his birth, was overwhelmed by extremists intent on causing havoc.
The West, he thinks, should have realised the fatwa was just the beginning of a new era. "There was a tendency from everybody to believe that it was an isolated incident rather than an indicator or something wider, to believe that it was all my fault," he says.
He is not worried about the anniversary. "I am sure there will be some nasty noises but there are nasty noises every year." But as someone who has lived much of his life under the shadow of fundamentalism, he believes successive British governments have pursued the wrong policy over religious extremists. "This country became the safe haven for every extremist group in the world. It was idiocy, idiocy," he says.
Rushdie has always been riveted by the disruptions and migrations between the Eastern and Western world, and his latest book, The Enchantress of Florence, brings together the extravagant Islamic Mogul empire and the equally extraordinary Florentine world of Machiavelli.
"I thought the thing that would be interesting was how different the two worlds were. I kept finding echoes. Both cultures were very hedonistic, both trying to choose between a puritanical and secularist view," he says.
There are, of course, striking parallels with the rising tensions between East and West in this century. Rushdie is not convinced that there is a clash of civilisations between Islam and Christianity. "There is a kind of Islam which is at war with an idea of the West but neither the West nor the Muslim world is monolithic," he says.
He watched with horror as flames tore through the Taj Mahal Palace hotel in Mumbai. "Those are the streets I grew up on. Two of the characters in my novel Midnight's Children consummate their love affair in the Palace, as so many of us did." His voice trails off for a moment. "It is strange that the three cities in my life that I have loved have all been subjected to terrorist attack in the last 10years."
The people of Mumbai showed extraordinary courage under attack, he says, but now the overwhelming mood is of great anger. "There is no question that this was Pakistan. You could see it as an act of war. The West should be tougher on Pakistan. It is trying to play both ends against the middle: to look like the friend of the revolutionaries on the one hand and a friend of the West in the fight against terrorism. It can't be both things. (Britain) should make clear that as long as Pakistan harbours terrorists it's not going to get any Western aid."
In his view Britain has been far too complacent about the rise of extremism. "Both Thatcher and Blair made the same mistake, which was the so-called Londonistan policy where you allow these (Islamist) groups to set up shop here in the belief that if you do that they won't attack this country and that you can monitor them."
Labour became much tougher on suspected terrorists after 9/11, raising concerns that civil liberties were being brushed aside.
"The War on Terror was always a terrible phrase," Rushdie says. "You are never going to defeat terror. But I sometimes think that liberal opinion in this country doesn't see that there actually are enemies. We just saw in Mumbai a demonstration of the extraordinary barbarism that people are prepared to unleash on the world. How many of these attacks do we need before we understand what's going on?"
There can be few people who feel the threat of fundamentalism more keenly than Rushdie. He lived with the threat of assassination for nine years but he does not regret writing The Satanic Verses. "Of course I don't, why would I? But I'm pleased that finally it's being read like a book. It used to be taught on politics and religion courses; now it's getting taught on fiction courses."
Some people would think of the time in hiding as missing years but he says: "You never really lose your time because if you are any good as a writer you learn from whatever happens to you. I met a lot of men of power in those years, so when I have to set out to create one I have quite a lot of models in my head."
There are, he tells us, many myths about his time in hiding. "I have read that I slept in 56 beds in three months. But for seven of the nine years I lived in the same house."
He hates the idea that he was sponging off the state, pointing out that he was never given a government safe house. "They told me I couldn't live at home and I had to find somewhere else to live and pay for it."
It is hard to imagine what he did when he was hidden away for nine years. "Like everybody else I played a computer game or two ... Martin (Amis) had these poker nights."
His would, he admits, be an extraordinary autobiography. "I have the Chinese curse of living in interesting times." He was deeply hurt when a former driver tried to publish a book last year in which he made many false allegations including suggesting that Rushdie was suicidal and did not get on with his protection officers. "Somebody tried to make a few bucks by telling a bunch of total lies. One of these days I will have to tell the story because otherwise I am going to be constantly vulnerable."
Rushdie is baffled by the hostility he inspires among some. "People can be very generous or very unfair and you never know which way they are going to go. Many of my friends were extraordinary in that period (in hiding). But there was also this surprising level of media hostility that still goes on. The subtext being: it's his own fault, he made the mistake of living and now he appears to be having a good time. He ought to be sitting inpenance."
The man once forced to be a recluse is now portrayed as a party animal, a favourite for the paparazzi, because he often has a beautiful woman on his arm.
At times he has played to the camera - he had a cameo role in the film Bridget Jones's Diary, and appeared in a music video with Scarlett Johansson - but he remains uncomfortable with the idea of celebrity. "Everybody goes to parties; it's just that when I go to parties they are always in the press." After four failed marriages, he says he has no intention of tying the knot again. "I'm not saying I am never going to fall in love again but there is no need to marry." Nor does he want any more children. "I'm 61, enough already." His latest project, however, is a children's book. "When I wrote my last children's book my oldest son was 11. He's 29 now. I have another 11-year-old now who wants a book. I read him the first 15 pages and he liked it."
He is fascinated by the success of the Harry Potter books. "The conventional thought about children's books was to keep them short; J.K. Rowling turned that on its head." Publishers, he thinks, should be more willing to challenge readers, whatever their age. "The whole world is commercial, including publishing. There's been a kind of bestselleritis ... If anyone likes my books, I am happy. I don't mind if they don't."
He is not a fan of misery lit. "At its best it's as interesting as any other form. The trouble is, at its worst it does become this kind ofblurt."
The literary world has changed since he started writing. "In the late '70s to late '80s there was a real desire for originality and a lot of us benefited from that - Angela Carter, Martin Amis, Ian McEwan, me."
The man who last year won the Best of the Booker for Midnight's Children says the British obsession with prizes baffles him. "They've become a marketing device, a way of selling books."
The Orange Prize for women is in his view patronising. "This is one world where women can more than hold their own and you don't need to create a ghetto."
He believes longevity is more important than instant success. If he submitted a manuscript to a publisher now, however, he doubts it would be accepted. "I wouldn't like to be starting now," he says. "I was lucky to get published in the first place." Source: The Australian
 January 6, 2009
Mumbai jihadists' prime target was Jewish center
"When asked during interrogation why Nariman House was specifically targetted, Ajmal reportedly told the police they wanted to sent a message to Jews across the world by attacking the ultra orthodox synagogue." "Strongest among men in enmity to the believers wilt thou find the Jews and Pagans" -- Qur'an 5:82
"Nariman House, not Taj, was the prime target on 26/11," by Somendra Sharma for DNAIndia, January 5 .
Think 26/11, and images of the carnage at the Taj come to mind. But the terrorists themselves were in no doubt that Nariman House was the prime focus. For this was the place which housed a Jewish centre, and the fanatics from Pakistan were clear that they wanted to send a message to the world from there.
The Mumbai crime branch, which is investigating the terror attacks, has found that the terrorists' handlers in Pakistan were clear this operation should not fail under any circumstances. The rest of the operations - at the Taj, Oberoi and Chhattrapati Shivaji Terminus - were intended to amplify the effect.
A senior police official, told DNA on condition of anonymity, that the interrogation of Mohammed Amir Iman Ajmal (aka Kasab) revealed as much. Just before entering the city, the terrorists' team leader, Ismail Khan, briefed them once again about their targets. "But Khan briefed Imran Babar, alias Abu Akasha, and Nasir, alias Abu Umer, intensely on what to do at Nariman House," the officer said.
When asked during interrogation why Nariman House was specifically targetted, Ajmal reportedly told the police they wanted to sent a message to Jews across the world by attacking the ultra orthodox synagogue.
According to the statement by Ajmal, Khan told Babar and Nasir that even if the others failed in their operation, they both could not afford to. "The Nariman House operation has to be a success," the officer said, quoting from Ajmal's statement.
"Khan also said that as far as Nariman House was concerned, there should not be even a minimal glitch in finding it and capturing it," the officer quoted Ajmal as saying.
After the dinghy carrying the 10 terrorists reached Mumbai at the Macchimar colony opposite Badhwar Park in Cuffe Parade, it was decided that no bombs would be planted in the taxi to be used to reach Nariman House. "The idea," according to the police officer, "was that if Babar and Nasir got delayed in locating and entering Nariman House, the bomb in the taxi may explode even before they entered their target." ... "Ansari told us that he did not divulge this information earlier because it would have jeopardised the most important operation of the LeT. He had also been warned by the LeT that Nariman House was their most secret operation and must not be compromised at any cost," the officer said. Source: JihadWatch
By Santosh Mishra
Disturbing photographs made available to this newspapers by police sources indicate that several of the guests at the Taj Mahal Hotel during the siege November 26 were sexually humiliated by the terrorists and then shot dead.
Police sources confirm that even as the terrorists were engaged in a fierce combat with NSG commandos, they were humiliating their hostages before ending their terrifying ordeal.
Foreign guests were their particular target. Eight of the 31 killed at the Taj were foreign nationals.
Photographs taken by a police forensic team after the hotel was sanitised yield a gruesome picture of some of the guests in the nude.
These bodies were found away from the hotel's swimming pool which makes it clear that they were not those guests who were taken hostage from the poolside.
"Even the Rabbi and his wife at Nariman House were sexually assaulted and their genitalia mutilated," said a senior officer of the investigating team, not wishing to be quoted.
“We have CCTV footage which reveals how these terrorists forced some of the guests who were holed up in restaurants to strip, but there is not evidence of rape,” he added.
These pictures, most of which we have refrained from printing, are in the records of the police and are now part of the investigation. Source: Mumbai Mirror H/T: Gateway Pundit
 December 21, 2008
FINAL preparations were under way overnight in Mumbai for the re-opening of the two luxury hotels recently stormed by Islamist militants, amid tight security and pledges to return to business as usual.
The modern Tower wing of the Taj Mahal hotel and all of the nearby Trident hotel are due to relaunch Sunday, less than a month after the devastating attacks that left 172 people dead, including nine of the 10 gunmen.
Guests will begin checking in at the Trident from this morning, while more than 1,000 key clients and guests have been invited for a private reception at the Taj before an evening reopening, officials at both hotels said.
"It's the best thing that could have happened," the general manager of the Trident, Sanju Soni, told AFP when asked about the swift reopening. "A hotel without guests is very depressing, especially after what happened.
"We are all looking forward to it. The sooner life gets back to normal the better."
The Trident opened its doors to the media Saturday, allowing access to its gallery of high-end shops, reception and restaurant areas, as finishing touches were put to the decor and fittings.
Female hotel workers in saris handed out yellow roses to reporters after stringent checks on identification, bags and frisking by security guards.
Armed police were positioned behind sandbags at the entrance and access roads were blocked off. Roads were also closed around the Taj and the landmark Gateway of India monument opposite.
The president of Trident Hotels, Rattan Kewani, paid tribute to the efforts of the staff to get the hotel back in shape, saying he felt "deep pride" for their work both during and after last month's attacks.
"Yes, there is grief, there is definitely a huge amount of sadness in everybody's mind because of colleagues and guests that we lost," he told a news conference.
"But since those days and the days after that, they have been committed 100 percent to whatever the needs are and they are desirous that the hotel bounces back as quickly as possible."
A total of 22 guests and 10 staff were killed at the Trident during the November 26-29 siege.
No date has yet been set for the reopening of the adjoining Oberoi hotel, which was more badly damaged during the siege and rescue operation. Bullet marks can still be seen on its whitewashed, sea-facing facade.
The 105-year-old palace wing of the Taj, which was badly damaged by fire and gunshots during the 60-hour siege, is also closed, pending painstaking renovations to ornate wood and marblework and lavish furnishings.
Fifty-two people died at the Taj, state officials said on December 5.
Kewani estimated that the cost of repairs to the Trident would be about $100,000 and up to $10 million dollars at the Oberoi. Physical traces of what happened would be erased but memories would not, he added.
Some 100 of the 550 guest bedrooms at the Trident will be occupied tonight, with all meeting rooms and the hotel's four restaurants open for business.
A total of 268 rooms will be available at the Taj, plus seven eateries, although officials said no immediate figures were available for bookings.
About 30 to 35 percent of prospective Trident guests cancelled after the attacks, in line with other hotels in the city and across India on security fears, but bookings were buoyant for January, Kewani said.
On security, he said specialist consultants had been drafted in, while both overt and covert methods would be used to improve safety, but he doubted whether anyone could have prevented such an unprecedented attack.
"Was it possible to have a deterrent for the kind of armed assault that was there? The answer is no," he said. Source:The Australian from Agence France-Presse
 Rhys Blakely | December 16, 2008
Bollywood may be famed for its relentless energy, but its rush to dramatise the terrorist attacks in Mumbai last month has caused public outcry.
In the days after the strikes, in which more than 170 died, 18 film titles on the theme of "Terror at the Taj" were registered with the Indian Motion Pictures Producers Association.
The first - 26/11 at Mumbai Operation - was applied for on November 28, when the Indian Army was still fighting heavily armed militant gunmen, room to room, in two luxury hotels.
The producer behind it, Vijay Verma, of Salt and Pepper Entertainment, said that his script was ready and shooting was set to begin in a matter of weeks. "What happened must be brought before the public," he said.
Few onlookers agree, however, and the unseemly haste to immortalise the attacks has had poor reviews.
Ram Gopal Verma, one of the best-known Indian directors, and his actor son were among the first people allowed inside the Taj Mahal Palace hotel, where scores of people died.
"Obviously his intention was to make a film of the attacks," Komal Nahta, the publisher of The Film Street Journal, a Bollywood trade magazine, said. "And the media went at him with hammer and tongs."
The public distaste may reflect the sensationalist treatments often meted out by Bollywood. Indian cinema has a history of films that address current affairs but most dealing with terrorism have used real-life events as springboards for crudely nationalistic action movies, critics say.
"There have been many attempts to make films on terrorism but 90 per cent fall into jingoistic, partisan points of view," Piyush Jha, a director, said. "Indian films don't explore Islamic fundamentalism...India looks at things in black and white."
The titles registered after the Mumbai attacks - which include Taj Terror, Bird's Point of View of Taj Terror and 11/26 Operation Taj - have convinced many that the producers are unlikely to break new ground.
There are also doubts about whether India has the stomach for films based on an event that was beamed live into millions of homes for 60 hours. Mahesh Ramanathan, the chief operating officer for Reliance Big, one of the biggest Bollywood studios, said: "Television pushed the reality of the attacks into people's faces. They won't watch the same thing in the cinema."
There are, however, indications that Indian audiences who are more used to lavish musicals will watch films that examine terrorism from fresh perspectives.
Mr Jha's next film, Sikander, follows a Kashmiri boy who is drawn into Islamist extremism with a view to explaining how it is possible for militant groups to recruit members.
It is based on extensive research and is being billed by its producers as "a human story that will resonate with international audience".
Such films are still seen as niche titles but are growing in appeal, experts say. The most prominent film of this new wave, A Wednesday, drew critical acclaim and achieved commercial success this summer.
Neeraj Pandey, its director, said: "It's only 100 minutes long, there are no songs, it deals with a serious subject: it doesn't confirm to the mainstream perception of Hindi-language cinema." He suggested that the Mumbai attacks may foster similar projects. Source: The Australian
Rhys Blakely, Mumbai | December 05, 2008
THE sole Mumbai gunman to be taken alive has told police he was paid 150,000 Pakistani rupees ($2970) for his part in the attacks that killed nearly 200 people.
Rakesh Maria, the joint commissioner of Mumbai police, who is one of the interrogators questioning baby-faced gunman Ajmal Amir Kamal said police were also investigating a possible link to the US, a mobile SIM card found with the terrorists that possibly came from New Jersey.
"Nothing is confirmed, but we are looking at this and have made enquiries with mobile operators," Mr Maria said.
Indian interrogators are preparing to administer a truth serum on Kamal, the sole Islamic militant captured during last week's terror attacks on Mumbai, to settle the question of where he is from.
The controversial technique, banned in most democracies, was widely used by Western intelligence agencies during the Cold War, before it emerged that the drugs used, typically the barbiturate sodium pentothal, may induce hallucinations, delusions and psychotic manifestations.
The identity of Kamal was at the centre of a row between India and Pakistan yesterday.
Police said Kamal had identified himself as a 24-year-old Pakistani from the village of Faridkot in the southern part of the Pakistani province of Punjab.
Meanwhile, Indian officials remain under pressure to account for the lax handling of last week's crisis.
The deployment of India's elite troops to the two luxury hotels that were stormed by terrorist gunmen may have been delayed for hours by red tape that calls for a written request to be made to the Indian navy before they are dispatched.
An Indian defence spokesman based in Mumbai said standing orders demanded that a letter be sent to the Indian navy before its marine commandos - or "Marcos" - are ordered from their barracks.
The spokesman said that the paperwork was eventually sidestepped on the day of the attacks, but not until it became apparent to millions of television viewers across the world that India's commercial capital was under a massive, co-ordinated terror attack.
Despite the Marcos - regarded as the "best of the best" of India's military - being based in Mumbai, they did not reach the Taj Mahal and Oberoi hotels until 1.30am, about four hours after the terrorist gunmen had stormed the buildings.
By that stage the militants had consolidated their positions and trapped hundreds of staff and guests.
According to a deputy police commissioner in Mumbai and one of Kamal's interrogators, the 10 gunmen had been chosen from a group of 24 that had gone through the same extensive training, overseen by an ex-army officer.
They were prepared by being shown violent footage from Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine.
According to Indian police, evidence of a Pakistan link also includes grenades found on the gunmen, which were manufactured in Pakistan, and satellite phone calls from a handset used by the militants.
Indian investigators said 8kg of explosives had been found in a bag in Mumbai's main railway station, where Kamal and an accomplice killed 56 people a week ago. Source: The Australian
 Aijaz Zaka Syed | December 01, 2008
Watching the terror nightmare unfold in Mumbai over the past three days on TV, my children have repeatedly asked me: “Who are these terrorists and why are they doing this?” And every time I wished I could offer them a convincing answer. I was clueless why these people had taken over Mumbai and were targeting people who had nothing to do with them. I was also ashamed to tell them that the terrorists were Muslims and came from a country that was created in the name of Islam.
At work, while my colleagues went about covering the madness in Mumbai and laying out pages with the images of the Taj Hotel with its Islamic arches and domes go up in smoke, I find it hard to look at them in the eye.
This happens all the time. Every time innocents are targeted in the name of Islam around the world, one can’t face one’s non-Muslim friends and colleagues.
A distraught friend who has devoted her life to speaking and fighting on behalf of Arabs and Muslims wrote: “I’ve had it with the Arabs and Muslims and Islamic militancy. Forgive me but I am throwing in the towel.”
I couldn’t write back to her. She grew up in Mumbai and is upset. She went on to say: “The Muslims and Islam have a problem and only they can solve it. If they do not, the whole world will turn against them.”
If this is how our most loyal friends feel, imagine the sentiments and reactions of the rest of the world.
Can you blame the world if it’s turning against Muslims? What do you expect when not a day passes without the name of our faith being dragged through the mud by fellow believers around the world?
I know that Muslim leaders, including those in the highest echelons of power, have lately started speaking out against the extremists. The Darul Uloom Deoband in India, one of the oldest and most respected centres of learning in the Muslim world, issued a fatwa against terrorism at a large gathering of Islamic scholars in June. Last month, nearly 5,000 scholars backed the edict at a huge congregation in Hyderabad. The Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC), and Saudi Arabia have, of late, been vehement in condemning these repulsive acts of violence targeting innocents. But clearly, we need to do more to be heard.
The great irony of the Mumbai attacks is the killing of ATS chief Hemant Karkare, a brave officer trying to establish the link between Hindu extremists and the Malegaon blasts. He was killed outside the Cama hospital on Wednesday night. Obviously, some Muslims do not know their friends from their enemies.
It’s all very well for us to say Islam has nothing to do with extremism and terrorism. We can go on deluding ourselves that these psychopaths do not represent us. However, the world finds it hard to accept this line of argument as it sees the extremists increasingly assert themselves and take the centrestage while mainstream Islam turns into a moderate fringe.
Aijaz Syed is Opinion Editor, Khaleej Times Source: Hindustan Times H/T: LGF2
 From correspondents in Washington | December 03, 2008
PAKISTANI President Asif Ali Zardari strongly denied his country was involved in the Mumbai attacks, saying the gunmen were "stateless actors" seeking to hold the world hostage.
"I think these are stateless actors who have been operating throughout the region," he told CNN's Larry King.
"The gunmen, whoever they are, they are all stateless actors who are holding hostage the whole world.''
Pakistan has offered to work hand-in-hand with India to track down those responsible for the Mumbai attacks but declined to respond immediately to a demand that it hand over 20 terrorist suspects.
Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi suggested setting up a "joint investigation mechanism" into the assaults, which left 188 dead.
As tensions mounted between the nuclear-armed neighbours over the siege of India's financial capital, India demanded that Pakistan arrest and extradite the list of terror suspects.
But Mr Qureshi did not respond to the handover request, saying the government wanted proof of India's allegation that all the attackers were Pakistanis.
Among the suspects was Hafiz Saeed, the founder of the outlawed Lashkar-e-Taiba militant group that has been accused of carrying out last week's dramatic assault on Mumbai.
CNN and other US networks reported that the United States had warned India in October hotels and business centres in Mumbai would be targeted by attackers coming from the sea.
One US intelligence official had named the Taj Mahal hotel, one of 10 sites hit in the 60-hour siege by gunmen, as a specific target, ABC television said. It said Indian intelligence officials intercepted a phone call on November 18 to an address in Pakistan used by the head of Lashkar-e-Taiba, revealing a possible attack from the sea.
About 10 gunmen landed in rubber dinghies in Mumbai last Wednesday and wreaked havoc with automatic weapons and hand grenades, in an assault that killed 188 and injured more than 300. The dead included 22 foreign nationals.
India's security and intelligence agencies have come under intense criticism over their handling of the incident.
"Such comprehensive failure was held up to the world's view during 60 hours of unprecedented trauma, featuring 10 heavily armed terrorists who sailed into Mumbai from Pakistan and penetrated Indian defences as if it was child's play," The Hindu newspaper said yesterday. Source: The Australian from Agence France-Presse
December 02, 2008
INDIA received warnings in October from US intelligence of a possible terrorist attack "from the sea" on targets in Mumbai, according to American news reports.
Unnamed US intelligence officials told the American ABC network they had warned their Indian counterparts in mid-October of a potential attack “from the sea against hotels and business centres in Mumbai”.
One intelligence official even mentioned specific targets, including the Taj hotel, the TV news service said.
According to the CNN network, Indian sources confirmed that US officials warned them twice of a possible attack on Mumbai.
About 10 gunmen landed in rubber dinghies on the beaches of Mumbai on Wednesday and launched a 60-hour assault that killed at least 172 people and injured close to 300.
Indian intelligence officials told ABC News that on November 18 they intercepted a satellite phone call to an address in Pakistan used by the leader of the Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist group, revealing a possible sea-borne attack.
The group is believed to be behind the bloody Mumbai attacks.
US officials also said US intelligence had been tracking prepaid mobile phone SIM cards recovered from the Mumbai terrorists, which had led them to a “treasure trove” of leads from Pakistan and several possible connections to the US, ABC reported.
They said one of the SIM cards might have been purchased in the US.
No further details were provided because of the ongoing investigation, ABC reported. Source: The Australian from Agence France-Presse
 Monday, December 01, 2008
At least five terrorist gunmen have evaded capture in Mumbai and could make a secondary strike on India's financial capital, police feared Monday morning.
Indian security forces are officially claiming that ten militants – nine of whom were killed and one caught alive – were behind a coordinated terror attack that claimed 172 lives.
However, the hijacked Indian fishing boat used by the gunmen to approach Mumbai, the crew of which were also slaughtered, had equipment for 15 men on board when it was discovered adrift off the city shore – suggesting that several gunmen could still be at large.
"Fifteen jackets were found, 15 toothbrushes even," one police source said. "That more men were involved, is possible."
The news came as Shakeel Ahmad, India's Deputy Home Minister, said that all the gunmen found so far were from Pakistan, an allegation that threatened to place further stress on the troubled relationship between the two nuclear powers.
The Indian government has raised the country's security to a "war level", claiming proof of a Pakistani link to the Mumbai strikes.
In response, Pakistan threatened to end military operations against Islamist militants - including the Taliban and Al Qaeda – on its border with Afghan border if it is forced into an "unwanted conflict" with Delhi.
Mumbai residents suspect that perhaps two dozen gunmen had stormed the city – an impression supported by early police and media reports on Wednesday night when a wave of attacks at at least eight locations rocked Mumbai. Angry at the Government's response to the crisis, they are reluctant to accept the assurances that all the terrorists are all accounted for.
Yesterday Shivraj Patil, India's Home Minister, resigned after a public backlash at the handling of the attack on Mumbai. People are furious that it took an elite group of commandos at least seven hours to reach the two luxury hotels that were attacked, by which time the gunmen had consolidated their positions and trapped hundreds of people.
It has also emerged that Rata Tata, the head of the Indian conglomerate that owns the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel, had been warned of a possible attack on the hotel. He claimed, however, that no security arrangements could have prevented the highly-trained and organised militants.
"They did not go through the front entrance. All our security arrangements are in the front," he said. "They planned everything. I believe the first thing they did, they shot a sniffer dog and his handler."
The sole Mumbai gunman captured alive has already told police he was trained in Pakistan and ordered to "kill until the last breath", according to a leaked account of his interrogation.
Azam Amir Kasab, 21, a Pakistani national, claimed the terror strikes, which left 172 dead, were intended to kill as many as 5,000 people and that he and his fellow militants were ordered to target whites – especially Britons and Americans. The claims were made in what a police source said was a transcript of his questioning. Source: FoxNews H/T: Gateway Pundit
 Bruce Loudon, South Asia correspondent
December 01, 2008
THE al-Qa'ida-linked Lashkar-e-Toiba terrorists suspected over the Mumbai massacre were trained in Muzaffarabad, capital of Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, and were incited by speeches from their leader in Lahore.
As the sole surviving terrorist was interrogated in Mumbai, security sources told The Australian that 10 terrorists were picked by LET for the suicide mission.
They were ordered to "kill until your last breath" and murder up to 5000 people.
They did so after provocative speeches by Hafiz Mohammed Saeed last month in Lahore, capital of the Punjab.
Saeed, described as LET's supreme religious and political head, declared in one speech: "The only language India understands is that of force, and that is the language it must be talked to in."
The email claiming responsibility for the Mumbai attack minutes after it started last Wednesday was generated on a computer based in Pakistan.
And a satellite telephone captured from the terrorists revealed calls made to numbers in Pakistan during the attacks, reports said.
Officials said the terrorists' route to Mumbai had been recorded on GPS co-ordinates contained in the satellite phones.
Sources said the 10 terrorists -- most of whom were believed to be Pakistanis -- were ordered to undergo training to attack Mumbai.
The captured gunman, Ajmal Amir Kamal, 21, reportedly told intelligence sources the group had trained openly in Muzaffarabad before heading to the nearby Mangala dam for lessons in marine commando techniques.
The group then visited Rawalpindi, which adjoins Islamabad, the Pakistan capital and site of the Pakistan army headquarters.
From there, the group took a train to the port city of Karachi, where, heavily armed, they boarded a freighter for the trip to Mumbai. Along the way, they became nervous about Indian coastguard activity and almost aborted the mission.
They "dragooned" a less conspicuous, passing fishing boat into service, shooting dead four of its crew members. The skipper of the fishing boat and another crew member took them closer to Mumbai before they, too, were killed. One was decapitated and the other had his throat slit.
Close to shore, they transferred to small speedboats for the run into the two landing points they had selected in Mumbai - Sassoon Docks and Badhwar Park, on Cuff Parade.
Conflicting evidence obtained by intelligence agencies suggests that the group may have had local support, and that one or more of its members may have been staying locally, possibly even in the Taj Mahal hotel.
A British link to the attacks was raised over the weekend when a senior Indian official claimed that Britons were among the militants.
Vilasrao Deshmukh, the chief minister of Maharashtra state, in which Mumbai lies, was quoted on an Indian television station as saying that British citizens had been detained.
British MP Patrick Mercer, a former Tory security spokesman, said he had been given information that at least two of the terrorists had credit cards and other identifying documents that linked them to Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, in northeast England.
The claims, however, were not substantiated by official British sources, who said there was no evidence "at this stage" that Britons had taken part in the attacks, although they acknowledged that events were "moving fast" and more information was emerging about the nationality of the terrorists.
MI5 and British counter-terrorist police are keeping in close touch with their counterparts in India and are alert to the possibility that Britons with Pakistani origins might have been involved. Significant numbers of young British Pakistanis have taken part in terrorist training in Pakistan.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said that there was no evidence of Britons being involved, and the Foreign Secretary David Miliband said: "We obviously will want to work very closely with the Indians but it is too early to say whether or not any of them are British."
Malaysian police are investigating reports that Malaysian-issued credit cards were found in the belongings of the terrorists involved in the Mumbai attacks.
Home Minister Syed Hamid Albar said Malaysia had no links with the terrorists, responding to an Indian report that nine of the gunmen claimed to be Malaysian students when they travelled to Mumbai several months ago.
Terror analyst Praveen Swami said that at a meeting of key LET leaders in Lahore on October 19, LET leader Saeed, who insists he is only head of the Jamaat-ud-Dawa welfare organisation, made plain his view of Pakistan's neighbour.
"India, he claimed, was building dams in (Indian-controlled) Jammu and Kashmir to choke Pakistan's water supplies and cripple its agriculture," Mr Swami reported Saeed as saying.
"Earlier, in an October 6 speech, Saeed claimed that India had 'made a deal with the United States to send 150,000 Indian troops to Afghanistan' and that it agreed to support the US in its existential war against Islam.
"Finally, in a sermon to a congregation at the Jamia Masjid al-Qudsia (mosque) in Lahore at the end of October, Saeed proclaimed that there was an 'ongoing war in the world between Islam and its enemies'.
"He claimed that 'crusaders of the East and West have united in a cohesive onslaught against Muslims'." Source: The Australian
By Justin Davenport, Rashid Razaq and Nicola Boden
British-born Pakistanis among arrested militants
Commandos storm strongholds to rescue hostages
Siege continues at Taj hotel as bystanders wounded
Death toll rises as another 24 bodies found in hotel
At least five dead hostages found in Jewish Centre
British-born Pakistanis were among the Mumbai terrorists, Indian government sources claimed today, as the death toll rose to at least 155.
As many as seven of the terrorists may have British connections and some could be from Leeds and Bradford where London's July 7 bombers lived, one source said.
Two Britons were among eight gunmen being held, according to Mumbai's chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh. At least nine others are reportedly dead.
The eight arrested were captured by commandos after they stormed two hotels and a Jewish centre to free hostages today. Despite the Indian authorities' assurances that the situation was under control, the siege continued at the Taj Mahal hotel and explosions could still be heard in central Mumbai.
One security official said: 'There is growing concern about British involvement in the attacks.'
But Gordon Brown has urged caution. He emerged from a conversation with India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to say there was no suggestion of a British link.
'At no point has the prime minister of India suggested to me that there is evidence at this stage of any terrorist of British origins, but obviously these are huge investigations that are being done and I think it will be premature to draw any conclusions at all,' Mr Brown said.
Calm: One of the young gunmen with his weapon, looking for more victims. Indian authorities say two of the arrested militants were British-born Pakistanis
Loss: Bollywood actor Ashish Chaudhary is consoled outside Mumbai's Trident-Oberoi Hotel after learning about his sister's death
Gone: US citizen Alan Scherr and daughter Naomi, pictured with his wife Kia, were killed in Mumbai's Oberoi hotel. They were in India with religious group Synchronicity Foundation, which was hosting a meditation program at the hotel
Senior Whitehall sources said it was too early to say whether there had been any involvement by British nationals but that security services, working with overseas partners, would be looking at any potential links to the UK.
Home Secretary Jacqui Smith also said UK authorities had "no knowledge" of any British links with the massacre, while Foreign Secretary David Miliband said it was "too early to say" whether any of the terrorists were British.
As authorities tried to piece together the identities and motivations of the attackers, special forces were still battling with gunmen.
At the five-star Taj Mahal Hotel, officers were still locked in combat with up to six militants believed to be holed up in the ballroom.
The Indian authorities thought they had ended the siege there last night after they shot dead three terrorists and released hundreds of hostages, but it raged again today.
In a major army operation, soldiers threw grenades at the walls in a bid to smoke out the militants. Four bystanders were reported wounded in the crossfire.
Mumbai officials say more than 155 people in total have now died in the attacks. Another 370 were wounded.
The tragic figures include the bodies of another five hostages who were found dead inside the Nariman House Jewish Centre this afternoon after commandos finally secured the building.
Two militants were also killed. It is not known whether the Rabbi and his wife who were believed to be among the hostages are dead or alive.
Around 20 masked officers had raided the centre this morning, dropping from helicopters onto the roof, in an operation dubbed Operation Black Tornado.
Hours of heavy fighting ensued as they moved from floor after floor. As dusk fell, there was a massive explosion and it appeared to be over.
Air rescue: A commando drops to the roof of Mumbai's Jewish centre and below, officers span out ready to storm the building
Across the city at the Oberoi Hotel, the siege ended when two militants were shot dead.
Dozens of traumatised guests emerged unharmed but inside there were scenes of carnage and the bodies of another 24 victims.
Many of those freed had been locked in their rooms, terrified, for 41 hours while the gunmen rampaged.
Today, around 100 people were rescued and struggling to absorb their ordeal. One man was clutching a tiny baby in his arms as he walked out.
British lawyer Mark Abell emerged with a beaming smile, saying: 'I'm going home, I'm going to see my wife. '
The 51-year-old told how he had spent the night listening to gunshots and explosions and communicating with the outside world on his phone and Blackberry.
Describing the scene when he was eventually led to safety, he said it was 'carnage' with 'blood and guts everywhere'.
'I was supposed to be working in Delhi but I think I have had more than my fair share of my business trip so I am looking forward to going home to see my family,' he said.
Rescued: A British man is led to safety from the Oberoi Trident Hotel today and below, another guest emerges clutching a tiny baby
A number of the hostages were airline staff still wearing their Lufthansa and Air France uniforms when they emerged from the building.
As they came out some carried luggage with Canadian flags, and two women were dressed in black abayas, traditional Muslim women's garments.
Others were not so lucky. Reported dead tonight was an American and his 13-year-old daughter as well as the wife and two children of the Taj hotel's general manager.
Foreigners from Japan, Australia, Italy and Germany and one Briton - tycoon Andreas Liveras - have already been confirmed as among the victims.
At least eight Britons were injured and there are fears the British toll could yet rise further as more and more buildings are made stable and searched.
Earlier, one commando revealed he had seen around 50 bodies littering the Taj hotel floor after special officers stormed the building and rescued hundreds of guests.
Clad in black, with a mask covering his face, the unit chief said: 'There was blood all over the bodies. The bodies were strewn here and there and we had to be careful as we entered the building to avoid further bloodshed of innocent civilians.'
The terrorists had seemed like young, ordinary men but had clearly been very well trained, he said.
'They were wearing T-shirts, just ordinary looking, but they have definitely been trained to use weapons. There is no way they could handle such weapons without being taught how to.'
Feared dead: Rabbi Gabriel Holtzberg and his wife Rivka were believed to be inside the Jewish centre where the bodies of five hostages were found
At least nine terrorists are thought to have been shot dead in gun battles across the city as police and special forces tried to regain control.
Three arrested at the Taj Mahal have been officially identified as a Pakistani national and two Indians. Another is reported to be a Mauritian national.
They arrived in the city by sea before fanning out to at least 10 locations. Dinghies were found moored at a jetty by the famous Gateway to India monument.
Today, coast guard officials said they could have hijacked an Indian trawler to drop them off after finding an abandoned boat drifting near the shore.
The captain's dead body was found inside the vessel, along with communications equipment.
Dressed in jeans and T-shirts and heavily armed, they then headed for the city - which is India's financial centre - and started firing indiscriminately.
It is thought they gained entrance to the hotels by pretending to be staff and hotel guests, according to reports.
Blast: Police throw a grenade into the Taj Mahal hotel as they desperately try to smoke out up to six militants hiding in the ballroom
Indian authorities have not released any details about the two Britons and the Foreign Office has refused to confirm Indian television reports.
Security services in Britain are now examining images of the gunmen in an effort to identify them.
India's High Commissioner Shiv Shankar Mukherjee played down speculation some of the gunmen were British: 'I have seen nothing more than what is in the media and that is based on speculation. I will wait for the investigation to produce some hard facts.'
Speculation linking the attackers with Bradford was quashed by the Leeds-based Counter Terrorism Unit.
A statement from officers said: "At this stage we are not in receipt of any intelligence or information linking the events in India to our area."
A team of Scotland Yard anti-terrorist detectives and negotiators are now on their way to Mumbai to assist in the investigation.
Indian commandos have recovered credit cards and the militants' ID cards as well as seizing a vast arsenal of grenades, AK-47 magazines, shells and knives.
A previously unknown Islamic group, Deccan Mujahideen, has claimed responsibility for the attacks but terror experts believe is is linked to Al Qaeda.
It is known that dozens of British-born Pakistanis have travelled to Pakistan to train in its camps in recent years.
One security source said recently: 'The camps are full and many of the people inside are Brits.'
There has been speculation that a British Al Qaeda suspect reportedly killed by a U.S. missile strike in Pakistan last weekend may have helped plot the attacks.
Rashid Rauf was among five killed in a missile attack in a tribal area in North Waziristan on Saturday.
Security sources believe that at the time of his death Rauf had been planning a major attack on Western targets.
Met officers were also interviewing passengers returning from Mumbai as they stepped off planes at Heathrow.
There was also speculation that England cricketers could have been an intended target of the terrorists.
It emerged that some of the team had been due to stay in Mumbai, most likely the Taj Mahal, on Wednesday evening before a late decision was made to switch training to Bangalore.
Shocked player Michael Vaughan said: 'I don't know why it was switched but we could have been there in one of those hotels when they were attacked.
'All our white Test kit is in one of the rooms at the Taj Mahal hotel: All our pads and clothes for the Test series and our blazers and caps and ties. That's how close the danger is.'
The England team will fly back to Britain today.
The bloody drama which began on Wednesday night has now lasted more than two days. The targets across the city were:
The Oberoi Hotel, in the commercial district. Its restaurant was bustling with diners, many of them tourists;
Also attacked was the Leopold restaurant, a haunt of the city's art crowd. As the fanatics sprayed the packed cafe, diners fled in terror;
Some of the worst scenes were at the major railway station. As they entered the Gothic Chatrapati Shivaji Terminus, once named after Queen Victoria, the gunmen were smiling. With an astonishing air of casualness, the terrorists started to shoot. Within seconds the concourse was a bloodbath. People lay screaming on the floor;
A further prestigious target was the 105-year-old Taj Mahal Palace and Tower Hotel;
More hostages were taken at the nearby Chabad House, headquarters for an ultra-orthodox Jewish group. A rabbi was among those held.
About 15 police officers were killed, including the head of Mumbai's anti-terrorism unit.
India's prime minister Manmohan-Singh has blamed militant groups based outside the country - usually meaning Pakistan - raising fears of renewed tensions between the two nuclear-armed rivals. Pakistan condemned the attacks.
The attack on the train station had echoes of previous terror outrages.
In July 2006 more than 180 people were killed in seven bomb explosions at railway stations and on trains in Mumbai that were blamed on Islamist militants. Source: Daily Mail
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Copyright Muslims Against Sharia 2008. All rights reserved.
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Britain's most prominent Muslim businessman, who was trapped inside a burning hotel in the Mumbai terror attacks, is calling on the government to toughen measures against extremist preachers.
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