"We have three foreigners, including women," the gunman said into the phone. The response was brutally simple: "Kill them."

Yahoo

Gunshots then rang out inside the Mumbai hotel, followed by cheering that could be heard over the phone.

The ruthless exchange comes from a transcript of phone calls Indian authorities say they intercepted during the November Mumbai attacks. They were part of a dossier of evidence New Delhi handed Pakistan this week that it says definitively proves that the siege was launched from across the border.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said Tuesday that he did not believe the gunmen were acting alone, and Pakistani state agencies must have had a hand in the attacks.
The dossier made no mention of any Pakistani officials or agencies.

Pakistani authorities are reviewing the evidence but have dismissed Singh's claims. Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani accused India of waging a "media and diplomatic offensive against Pakistan."

"It is clearly unhelpful to any serious and objective investigations and amounts to unnecessarily whipping up tensions in South Asia," Gilani said.

But Pakistani Information Minister Sherry Rehman did say Wednesday that the lone surviving gunman was a Pakistani citizen, after weeks of refusing to confirm Delhi's claims. Islamabad had previously said it could not find Ajmal Kasab — the only one of 10 not killed as commandos ended the siege — in its databases.

Indian leaders have made clear they do not want a military conflict with Pakistan, and Pakistan's intelligence chief said there will be no war over the Mumbai attacks.
"We may be crazy in Pakistan, but not completely out of our minds," Pakistan's intelligence chief, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shujaa Pasha, told German news magazine Der Spiegel. "We know full well that terror is our enemy, not India."

Predominantly Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan have fought three wars against each other since they gained independence in 1947.

The Mumbai transcripts, which were translated into English by Indian authorities and obtained by the newspaper The Hindu, show that the gunmen who carried out the attacks were in close contact with their handlers throughout the siege. India says the handlers directing the attacks that left 164 dead were senior leaders of Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistan-based militant group.

The handlers told a team of gunmen who had seized a Jewish center to shoot hostages if necessary.

"If you are still threatened, then don't saddle yourself with the burden of the hostages. Immediately kill them," he said.

Six Jewish foreigners, including a rabbi and his wife, were killed inside the Jewish center.

Later in the night, nearly 24 hours after the attacks began, the handlers urged the gunmen to "be strong in the name of Allah"

"Brother, you have to fight. This is a matter of prestige of Islam," the handler said. "You may feel tired or sleepy, but the commandos of Islam have left everything behind, their mothers, their fathers."

The gunmen were told several times not to kill any Muslim hostages.

The attackers used several different mobile phones, including those belonging to the hostages. Shortly after the siege began, Indian authorities say they began intercepting calls from inside the hotel. They were also able to pick up calls carried over the Internet, which the handlers used to route some calls, according to the dossier.

The siege lasted nearly three days, far longer than security experts said it should have, and, apparently, far longer than the terrorists expected as well. The handlers told the gunmen on Nov. 27 that "the operation has to be concluded tomorrow morning." But it was 36 more hours before it finished.

Much of the dialogue has a teacher-student dynamic, and indeed, the surviving gunman has said he and the rest of the group were trained by Lashkar in Pakistan.

"We made a big mistake," one of the gunman says into the phone in the early hours of the siege.
"What big mistake?"
"When we were getting into the boat ... another boat came. Everyone jumped quickly. In this confusion, the satellite phone of Ismail got left behind."

The investigation shows the gunmen entered Mumbai, which sits on the Arabian sea, by a rubber dinghy.

The attacks against iconic Mumbai targets were covered nonstop by news channels around the world. The handlers used the TV reports to guide the gunmen, the dossier says, including warning when commandos roped down to the Jewish center from helicopters.
The dossier included photographs of dozens of items recovered in the attacks, including GPS units, mobile phones, guns, and explosives, as well as data gleaned from satellite phones, and details from the interrogation of the lone surviving gunman.
It also had pictures of more mundane items India calls incriminating because they were made in Pakistan, including pickles, detergent, a match box, tissue paper, a Mountain Dew bottle, shaving cream and a towel.

But the strongest — and most chilling — evidence that the gunmen were not acting alone came from the phone transcripts.

"Keep your phone switched on," a handler said in the midst of the siege, "so that we can hear the gunfire."

Mumbai Lesson - Buy a gun, learn how to use it and carry.

Islamic murdering maggot. The little cocksucker, Azam Amir Kasab, 21, from Pakistan, is still alive.

Preparations for the atrocity may have began a year ago in a remote mountain camp in Kashmir Photo: AP

There appear to be 300 dead in Mumbai, killed by five two-man killing teams using mostly hand weapons. Government could not protect them before hand, while it happened, and will not be able to protect others, or you, next week or next year.

Like the police, governments can investigate after the fact, but rarely intercede and protect unless there is a controlled environment such as an airport. An airplane suicide attack such as 911 is unlikely. Another Mumbai is practically guaranteed.

In the Telegraph article, they describe the training and motivation of the killers. It was formidable.

From my experience in Central America, I can assure you that private security guards are practically useless. They are poorly paid, predictable in their placement and habits, obvious to identify and easy to intimidate or in this case kill. Most will simply flee at the first sign of a serious challenge. That is our natural instinct, flee and stay alive. Your reaction and that of most others would be the same. However, there is an important difference.

If a person trained with a private weapon cannot flee, is armed and finds themselves trapped on a restaurant floor such as in Mumbai, they become highly motivated to survive. Five or six others randomly seated and scattered through other parts of a hotel radically changes the math.

______________________

300 May be dead in India

The audacious attack which took a year to plan
The attack was planned with military precision.

By Rahul Bedi in Bombay and Sean Rayment, Security correspondent
Last Updated: 10:44PM GMT 29 Nov 2008 Telegraph

Ten terrorists dedicated to fighting for an independent Kashmir were selected for an operation from which they were likely never to return.

The tactics were relatively simple: to strike at multiple targets while simultaneously slaughtering as many civilians as possible before going "static" in three of the locations within the city.

But such a plan would require a year of planning, reconnaissance, the covert acquisition of ships and speed boats as well as the forward basing of weapons and ammunition secretly hidden inside at least one hotel.

Nothing would be left to chance. Even the times of the tides were checked and rechecked to ensure that the terrorists would be able to arrive when their first target, the Café Leopold, was full of unsuspecting tourists enjoying the balmy Bombay (Mumbai) evening.

The preparations for the atrocity began a year earlier in a remote mountain camp in Muzaffarabad, in Pakistan- administered Kashmir, according to the interrogation of a 19-year-old believed to be the only member of the terrorist unit to be captured alive.
The Sunday Telegraph has been shown details of the interrogation which provide the first clues to the identity of the terrorists and the amount of detail which went into the planning of the operation.

Kamal has revealed to his interrogators that most of the volunteers spoke his native Punjabi and that all of them were given false names and were discouraged from interacting with each other beyond what was barely necessary.

During the months of training they were taught the use of explosives and close quarter combat. It was ingrained upon every man that ammunition would be in short supply and therefore every bullet should count.

The terrorists were also taught marine commando techniques such as beach landings at another camp at the Mangla Dam, located on the border between Pakistan-administered Kashmir and India's Punjab province.

Kamal revealed that once their training was complete, his team of four travelled to the garrison town of Rawalpindi, where they were joined by another six terrorists, who had been trained at other camps close by.

It was in Rawalpindi that the 10-man team were briefed in detail with digitised images of their prospective targets – the Taj Mahal and Oberoi Hotels, the Jewish Centre and the Victoria Terminus railway station. Each member of the team memorised street names and routes to each location. Kamal told his interrogators that most of the targeting information came from a reconnaissance team which had selected the targets earlier in the year.

From Rawalpindi, the team then moved to the eastern port of Karachi where they chartered the merchant ship MV Alpha and headed for Bombay.

It was during this crucial phase, as the cargo ship headed into the Arabian Sea, that the terrorists appeared to almost lose their nerve. The Indian navy, Kamal revealed, were very active, boarding foreign vessels and searching their holds. The terrorists thought their plan might be compromised so on the night of 15th/16th November, the teams used their inflatable speed boats to hijack a local fishing boat, the Kuber.
Kamal also admitted to his interrogators that three of the Kuber's four crew were immediately murdered, while the ship's captain was ordered to sail for the Indian coast. When the Kuber was within five miles of the coast, the terrorists slit the captain's throat and transferred back into their inflatable speed boats and headed for the lights of Bombay.

On landing the 10-man team, stripped off their orange wind breakers and began hoisting large heavy packs onto their shoulders.

Kashinath Patil, the 72-year-old harbour master, who spotted the boats moor alongside the harbour wall was immediately suspicious and asked them what they were doing. "I said: 'Where are you going? What's in your bags?'" Mr Patil recalled. "They said: 'We don't want any attention. Don't bother us."

The terrorists then split into two-man teams and launched their attacks.
Major General RK Hooda, the senior Indian commander, acknowledged the group, the Deccan Mujadeen, were better equipped and had a better knowledge of the battleground than India's soldiers.

After the battle, one member of India's National Security Guard, who led one of the assault groups against the terrorists occupying the Taj Mahal hotel, said they were the "best fighters" he had ever encountered.

He said: "They were obviously trained by professionals in urban guerrilla fighting. They used their environment and situation brilliantly, leading us (the NSG) on a dangerous chase through various tiers of the hotel which they obviously knew well. Their fire discipline too was excellent and they used their ammunition judiciously, mostly to draw us out.

"It was amply clear they came to kill a large number of people and to eventually perish in their horrific endeavour," he said. "Negotiating with the Indian authorities or escaping was not an option for them."

Neeta, the sister of Harish Gohil, who was shot dead by the terrorists, mourns over his body at his funeral in Mumbai. Photograph: Indranil Mukherjee/AFP

Terror and death in Mumbai

Mumbai looks good from the air.

"They were in no hurry. Cool and composed, they killed and killed
The young men came to by boat to unleash a night of carnage on the 'gateway to India'. Americans and British tourists were targeted, but Indians made up most of the victims"

Randeep Ramesh in Mumbai, Duncan Campbell and Paul Lewis
guardian.co.uk, Friday November 28 2008 00.01 GMT
The Guardian, Friday November 28 2008

The gunmen, most of them apparently in their twenties, wearing T-shirts, black shirts and jeans, came ashore in black and yellow inflatable rubber dinghies. Armed with automatic weapons, and carrying rucksacks packed with hand grenades and explosives, they abandoned their landing-craft on the beach, from where they would have been able to make out the outlines of their targets, some of Mumbai's most famous buildings.

It would appear that they had landed earlier, around 8pm, in a larger vessel at Sasoon dock and then used the dinghies to get closer to their targets in the heart of the city.

"Six young men with large bags came ashore, after which the two who remained in the boat started the outboard motor again and sped off," said one witness. "They were fair, chikna [well-off] and looked around 20, 22, 25 years old. They said they were students. When we tried to find out what they were doing, they spoke very aggressively, and I got scared."

Within two hours, the young gunmen were causing mayhem in the city that has always prided itself as being the hospitable gateway to India.

The targets for the attacks were clearly chosen for their iconic value, whether as symbols of Mumbai's power and wealth, cultural centres associated with western values or places where foreigners would be gathered. The inclusion of the headquarters of an ultra-orthodox Jewish group was obviously intended to send its own message.

By 9.15pm, the Leopold Cafe, a popular haunt for travellers for more than a century, and close to the Taj Mahal hotel, was under attack. A watering hole for writers and artists, it is also patronised by backpackers hoping for work as western extras in Bollywood films. Five men wielding AK-47 rifles charged in and opened fire without asking anyone to identify themselves. They lobbed hand grenades at the horrified onlookers.

"All of a sudden there was automatic gunfire. The whole place fell apart. It was tremendously loud. My husband and I were hit, as were lots of people," said Diane Murphy, 58, from Northumberland, who was shot in the foot. Her husband Michael, 59, is in intensive care after being shot in the ribs. As the couple dived to the floor, other diners, including Germans and Americans, ran into the kitchen or neighbouring rooms. It was only after a siege lasting several hours that some made an escape.

"We knew they were closer than they had been for the whole four hours. There were grenades going off, we started breaking the windows and ripped down curtains to make a rope," said David Gross, an Australian. "People were sliding out, like you're taught to do ... it was a one-storey drop on to broken glass." They scattered, leaving behind bloodstains and missing shoes.

A few minutes later, the Chhatrapati Shivaji terminus, previously known as the Victoria terminus, a world heritage site and one of India's busiest stations, was the scene of mayhem, with blood spattered across the station forecourt and platforms. Gunmen shot up the reservation counter of the station, randomly sprayed passengers, believed to be entirely composed of Indian travellers and commuters, and fled. "They just fired randomly at people and then ran away. In seconds, people fell to the ground," said Nasim Inam, a witness.

Cafe worker Pappu Mishra said two men dressed in black walked into the station pulling guns from their bags and shooting commuters. "Their audaciousness was breathtaking," he said. "One man loaded the magazine into the gun, the other kept shooting. They appeared calm and composed. They were not in the slightest hurry. They didn't seem to be afraid at all." At least 10 people were killed.

By 9.30pm, another team of gunmen were attacking the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower, best known just as the Taj, the city's premier hotel. Despite the security arrangements of a venue well aware that it might be a target, the gunmen appear to have had little problem gaining access.

"I was in the main lobby and there was all of a sudden a lot of firing outside," said the Conservative MEP Sajjad Karim, one of a delegation of European parliamentarians in Mumbai in advance of a European Union-India summit. "A gunman appeared in front of us, carrying machine gun-type weapons. And he just started firing at us ... I just turned and ran in the opposite direction."

Guests fled to their rooms and knotted curtains and sheets, which they lowered out of windows, and clambered down to safety. Some did not make it. Ralph Burkel, 51, a media manager from Munich, leaped from an upper floor window of the hotel to escape but fell heavily. He was able to reach a friend on his mobile phone who recounted that he was in agony. Burkel told him: "I've broken all the bones in my body. If no one helps me right now, I won't make it." He died before he could reach hospital.

Inside the hotel, the gunmen confronted guests and shouted: "Who has American or British passports?" Dining by the pool was Dalbir Bains, who runs a shop in Mumbai. She ran upstairs to the Sea Lounge restaurant, where around 50 other people were taking refuge. They hid under tables in the dark, hoping the gunmen would not find them and hearing the sounds of explosions elsewhere in the hotel. They managed to escape just before dawn.

There were bursts of automatic fire as other guests scattered. The shooting was followed by a series of explosions, just after midnight, that set fire to parts of the hotel. Screams could be heard from inside the hotel as flames burst from upstairs windows.

At least two of the gunmen were killed by police in the fierce battle to retake the hotel. Hermant Kerkare, the head of the police anti-terrorist squad and one of the most high-profile officers in the country, who was personally leading the operation, was one of the victims. There were repeated attempts by black-clad Indian commandos to take the hotels and free the hostages.

Even as this battle raged, Nariman House, the home of an ultra-orthodox Jewish group in south Mumbai, was coming under attack. Another group of gunmen had commandeered a police vehicle which allowed them to approach the HQ of the Chabad Lubavitch group. Two people are believed to have been killed and there were still reports last night of up to 10 Israelis being held hostage in the city.

By now the number of the attacks in the city was making it almost impossible for the police to keep up. Within moments, they were hearing reports of shooting at the Oberoi Trident hotel, part of one of the most prestigious chains of hotels in India. By 9.35pm guests there were trapped and in panic. "Save us", read a banner hung from one of the upper floor windows.

Alex Chamberlain, a British citizen who was dining at the Oberoi, told Sky News that a gunman ushered 30 to 40 people from the restaurant into a stairway and ordered everyone to put up their hands.

"They were talking about British and Americans specifically," he said. "There was an Italian guy, who, you know, they said: 'Where are you from?" and he said he's from Italy and they said 'fine' and they left him alone. And I thought: 'Fine, they're going to shoot me if they ask me anything' and thank God they didn't," he said. Chamberlain said he managed to slip away as others were marched upstairs to be kept as hostages.

Another guest fleeing from the Oberoi hotel was Mangho Kripalni, 84, who moved from India to New York as a young man and was taking his two daughters and granddaughter to India for the first time. "I just came here to show my family India but now I don't know why I did that," he said.

It would not be until the following morning that commandos were sent in to rescue people trapped inside. Two hotel staff, one security guard and two terrorists are thought to have been killed at the hotel.

While guests in both hotels spoke of some gunmen asking for Americans and Britons, the death toll made it clear that, by a vast majority, the main victims were Indians and that any foreigner was regarded as a suitable target. Among the dead are Japanese, Italians, Germans and Australians and among the guests rounded up were Yemenis, Spaniards, New Zealanders, Turks and Israelis.

The violence was far from over. As police sped from attack to attack, a taxi was blown up in Vile Parle at around 9.55pm. Gunmen also attacked Cama and Albless hospital and GT hospital, causing fresh panic. The hospital is known as a place where women and the children of the poor are treated and there was puzzlement as to why it had been added to the target list of the attackers. While there were reports of shooting, it was unclear how many died.

Also targeted by the gunmen was the 70-year-old Metro cinema, known as a popular hang-out for foreigners and cineastes as it shows English language and foreign films as well as being a popular venue for the premieres of mainstream Bollywood spectaculars.

As the sun came up yesterday morning and the city counted the cost, police declared a curfew around the Taj Mahal hotel, warning people to stay out of the area as black-clad commandos ran into the building seeking the gunmen and looking for remaining hostages and booby-traps. Soldiers moved from room to room, systematically flushing out gunmen. By 8.40am, all the hostages at the Taj had been rescued.

By the afternoon, bodies and guests who had been held as hostages were slowly emerging from the hotel. Witnesses reported at least three bodies, covered in white cloth, being wheeled out on trolleys. Other, some clutching luggage, were helped into ambulances.

"We're going to catch them dead or alive," Maharashtra home minister RR Patil told reporters. "An attack on Mumbai is an attack on the rest of the country."

While police and troops mopped up in the city, the Indian navy said its forces were boarding the cargo vessel suspected of being the mothership for the dinghies. Navy spokesman Captain Manohar Nambiar said that the ship, the MV Alpha, had recently come to Mumbai from Karachi, Pakistan. For a while, it seemed as though a new dimension was entering the equation but, after the ship had been boarded and searched, it was cleared and allowed to sail on. No weapons on traces of them were found on board and the naval statement confirming the all-clear came as Pakistani authorities warned that India should not accuse them of playing a part in the plot.

By 3.19pm yesterday the death toll had mounted to at least 119 people as police made attempts to flush out the remaining gunmen, around a dozen or so of whom remained holed up inside the hotels and Jewish centre. One man told reporters he had seen many bodies inside.

At Saint George hospital in south Mumbai, 63 people were confirmed dead, most from bullet wounds. Hospitals throughout the city started issuing lists of the dead and wounded as Mumbai began to count the cost of the massacre.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2008

"Show us your passports"

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

Telegraph

With the possible exception of the "floating" Lake Palace Hotel in Udaipur which was made famous by the James Bond film Octopussy, the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower Hotel in Bombay is India's best-known and best-loved hotel.

For any serious foreign investor, businessman or wealthy tourist visiting India's commercial capital, "The Taj", as it is universally known by the cognoscenti, is always the first choice.

With best rooms in the superior old wing costing more than £250 per night - more than 250 millions Indians can expect to earn in a year - the hotel offers a world of secluded luxury, away from the grinding poverty and infrastructural decay of Mumbai.
Legend has it that its creator, a Parsi industrialist called Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata, commissioned the building after being refused entry to the now-defunct Apollo Hotel, which had a strict Europeans-only policy.

However with its colonnades of shops stuffed with the world's most expensive brands, what Bombay's rich set consider the ultimate in cosmopolitan luxury, would equally be perceived by Islamist ideologues as a symbol of Western decadence.

Over the years guests have included The Queen, the former Egyptian president Gamal Abdul Nasser and the Beatle John Lennon, to name but a few of the notable personalities to have checked in to the magnificent old wing.

More recently the hotel hosted the guests for Bombay leg of Liz Hurley's two-week extravaganza of a wedding, with guests dashing straight from the front door to waiting motor launches to take them to the privacy of waiting super-yachts in the harbour beyond.

To have pictures of burning Taj Hotel broadcast around the world will have a deeper impact than even perhaps the terrorists intended, striking a blow against a symbol of Indian wealth and progress and sending shivers down the spine of some of the richest and most powerful people on the planet.