|
|
 |
|
Reply
| | From:  _Xer (Original Message) | Sent: 11/27/2008 6:35 AM |
What's happening in Mumbai, India, today is scaring the snot out of me. At least 101 people dead and over 200 injured.
Here is a Seattle PI blog:
Terror Attacks in Mumbai: Watching My City on Fire, Calling Home, and Keeping My Eyes on CNN
Terror and globalization, indeed, are bringing us together like never before.
My mother called this morning from Mumbai -- "You will hear the news in a few minutes. I wanted to get to you before that and tell you all of us in the family are safe."
I went online and switched on the television news. The news of the Mumbai terror attacks were already online and a few minutes later, there it was on CNN.
I have spent all day watching the news. In July-August this year, I had taken 19 students from Seattle University to Mumbai for a Study Abroad on the journalism and media of Mumbai. Most of them students of journalism, they wrote a daily blog of their days in Mumbai. Back here in Seattle, those students have been on Facebook all day today, informing each other and also emailing the friends they made while in Mumbai. Is everyone OK?
In particular, they are thinking of Leopold Cafe, where they "hung out" almost every night after our work for the day was done. They are also thinking of the Taj Hotel, through which we all walked, admiring the architecture. They are posting on Facebook all the pictures they took in all these Mumbai landmarks that are now under siege.
What an interconnected world we live in. What a strange combination of global media (CNN) and social media (Facebook).
In 1991, as a cub reporter in a Bombay newspaper, I was assigned by my editor to watch CNN's live coverage of the first American war in Iraq. CNN had just started telecasting in India. I was reminded of that time today. All those years ago, I watched CNN in Mumbai to get breaking news coverage from America and Iraq. Today, sitting in my home here in Seattle, I am watching CNN to get news from Mumbai, my first home.
There is also news on CNN: NEW: Gunshots heard at two Mumbai hotels where hostages are being held. Gunmen strike at series of targets popular with tourists and business people 85 dead, 200 wounded, police spokesman says. Police say it is unclear who carried out attacks.
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/11/26/india.attacks/index.html?eref=edition |
|
 First
Previous
2-9 of 9
Next
Last
|
|
Reply
| | | From: _Xer | Sent: 11/27/2008 6:36 AM |
The best report I've found yet.
At Least 100 Dead in India Terror Attacks
MUMBAI, India �?Coordinated terrorist attacks struck the heart of Mumbai, India’s commercial capital, on Wednesday night, killing dozens in machine-gun and grenade assaults on at least two five-star hotels, the city’s largest train station, a Jewish center, a movie theater and a hospital.
Even by the standards of terrorism in India, which has suffered a rising number of attacks this year, the assaults were particularly brazen in scale and execution. The attackers used boats to reach the urban peninsula where they hit, and their targets were sites popular with tourists.
The Mumbai police said Thursday that the attacks killed at least 101 people and wounded at least 250. Guests who had escaped the hotels told television stations that the attackers were taking hostages, singling out Americans and Britons.
A previously unknown group claimed responsibility, though that claim could not be confirmed. It remained unclear whether there was any link to outside terrorist groups.
Gunfire and explosions rang out into the morning.
Hours after the assaults began, the landmark Taj Mahal Palace & Tower Hotel, next to the famed waterfront monument the Gateway of India, was in flames.
Guests banged on the windows of the upper floors as firefighters worked to rescue them.
Fire also raged inside the luxurious Oberoi Hotel, according to the police. A militant hidden in the Oberoi told India TV on Thursday morning that seven attackers were holding hostages there.
“We want all mujahedeen held in India released, and only after that we will release the people,�?he said.Some guests, including two members of the European Parliament who were visiting as part of a trade delegation, remained in hiding in the hotels, making desperate cellphone calls, some of them to television stations, describing their ordeal.
Alex Chamberlain, a British citizen who was dining at the Oberoi, told Sky News television that a gunman had ushered 30 or 40 people from the restaurant into a stairway and, speaking in Hindi or Urdu, ordered them 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.�?BR>
Sajjad Karim, 38, a British member of the European Parliament, told Sky News: “A gunman just stood there spraying bullets around, right next to me.�?BR>
Before his phone went dead, Mr. Karim added: “I managed to turn away and I ran into the hotel kitchen and then we were shunted into a restaurant in the basement. We are now in the dark in this room, and we have barricaded all the doors. It’s really bad.�?BR>
Attackers had also entered Cama and Albless Hospital, according to Indian television reports, and struck Nariman House, which is home to the city’s Chabad-Lubavitch center.
A spokesman for the Lubavitch movement in New York, Rabbi Zalman Shmotkin, told the Associated Press that attackers “stormed the Chabad house�?in Mumbai.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry said it was trying to locate an unspecified number of Israelis missing in Mumbai, according to Haaretz.com, the Web site of an Israeli newspaper.
Several high-ranking law enforcement officials, including the chief of the antiterrorism squad and a commissioner of police, were reported killed.
The military was quickly called in to assist the police.
Hospitals in Mumbai, a city of more than 12 million that was formerly called Bombay, have appealed for blood donations. As a sense of crisis gripped much of the city, schools, colleges and the stock exchange were closed Thursday.
Vilasrao Deshmukh, the chief minister for Maharashtra State, where Mumbai is, told the CNN-IBN station that the attacks hit five to seven targets, concentrated in the southern tip of the city, known as Colaba and Nariman Point. But even hours after the attacks began, the full scope of the assaults was unclear.
Unlike previous attacks in India this year, which consisted of anonymously planted bombs, the assailants on Wednesday night were spectacularly well-armed and very confrontational. In some cases, said the state’s highest-ranking police official, A. N. Roy, the attackers opened fire and disappeared.
Indian officials said the police had killed six of the suspected attackers and captured nine.
A group calling itself the Deccan Mujahedeen said it had carried out the attacks. It was not known who the group is or whether the claim was real.
Around midnight, more than two hours after the series of attacks began, television images from near the historic Metro Cinema showed journalists and bystanders ducking for cover as gunshots rang out. The charred shell of a car lay in front of Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, formerly Victoria Terminus, the mammoth railway station. A nearby gas station was blown up.
The landmark Leopold , a favorite tourist spot, was also hit.
Reached by phone, some guests who had been trapped in the Taj said about 1 a.m. that they had heard an explosion and gunfire in the old wing of the hotel.
A 31-year-old man who was in the Taj attending a friend’s wedding reception said he was getting a drink around 9:45 p.m. when he heard something like firecrackers �?“loud bursts�?interspersed with what sounded like machine-gun fire.
A window of the banquet hall shattered, and guests scattered under tables and were quickly escorted to another room, he said. No one was allowed to leave.
Just before 1 a.m., another loud explosion rang out, and then another about a half-hour later, the man said.
At 6 a.m., he said that when the guests tried to leave the room early Thursday, gunmen opened fire. One person was shot.
The man’s friend, the groom, was two floors above, in the old wing of the hotel, trapped in a room with his bride. One explosion, he said, took the door off its hinges. He blocked it with a table.
Then came another blast, and gunfire rang out throughout the night. He did not want to be identified, for fear of being tracked down.
Rakesh Patel, a British businessman who escaped the Taj, told a television station that two young men armed with a rifle and a machine gun took 15 hostages, forcing them to the roof.
The gunmen, dressed in jeans and T-shirts, “were saying they wanted anyone with British or American passports,�?Mr. Patel said.
He and four others managed to slip away in the confusion and smoke of the upper floors, he said. He said he did not know the fate of the remaining hostages.
Clarence Rich Diffenderffer, of Wilmington, Del., said after dinner at the hotel he headed to the business center on the fifth floor.
“A man in a hood with an AK-47 came running down the hall,�?shooting and throwing four grenades, Mr. Diffenderffer said. “I, needless to say, beat it back to my room and locked it, and double-locked it, and put the bureau up against the door.�?BR>
Mr. Diffenderffer said he was rescued hours later, at 6:30 a.m., by a cherrypicker.
Among those apparently trapped at the Oberoi were executives and board members of Hindustan Unilever, part of the multinational corporate giant, The Times of India reported.
Indian military forces arrived outside the Oberoi at 2 a.m., and some 100 officers from the central government’s Rapid Action Force, an elite police unit, entered later.
CNN-IBN reported the sounds of gunfire from the hotel just after the police contingent went in.
The Bush administration condemned the attacks, as did President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team. The White House said it was still “assessing the hostage situation.�?BR>
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/27/world/asia/27mumbai.html?em
It has been going on for fourteen hours now, and there are still hostages in fear for their lives. |
|
Reply
| | | From: _Xer | Sent: 11/27/2008 6:43 AM |
This is an interesting perspective by Christiane Amanpoor.
Amanpour: Attack comes at crucial time for region
(CNN) -- The Indian city of Mumbai exploded into chaos early Thursday morning as gunmen launched a series of attacks across the country's commercial capital, killing scores of people and taking hostages in two luxury hotels frequented by Westerners.
Chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpour spoke about the situation.
CNN: An attack this large, this sophisticated, and carried out with no warning could have come from inside India, maybe, maybe outside, maybe a neighboring state could be involved. We turn to Christiane Amanpour. What do you hear?
Christiane Amanpour: Well, Tom, this is the worst attack in India in the last 20 years, where Islamic militants have been stepping up their assaults on Mumbai, which is not just the center of its filmmaking but the economic and financial hub of India.
They have often blamed terror attacks on Islamic militants based in Pakistan. Some, they say, are concerned about, for instance, Indian rule over Kashmir. Al Qaeda also has threatened to attack India in revenge for its policies.
Very, very interestingly, this comes at a time when the new president of Pakistan has, in fact, gone further than any previous Pakistani leader in saying they want to improve relations with India, in saying they want to jointly combat terrorism together. The Pakistani president even went so far as saying he would consider renouncing a nuclear strike on India.
This is a very confused situation. Although some group has claimed responsibility, nobody knows the motive yet.
...
CNN: Talk to me about why it would be in the interest of these people to sever this tie between Pakistan and India. Do they believe India would join in the effort to squeeze them out?
Amanpour: This is the ongoing situation. Certainly, Kashmir is a flashpoint for India and Pakistan, and really back in 2006, there were Islamic militants blamed for recent attacks. About 180 people were killed there.
The one that came closest to pitting India against Pakistan was in 2001, when Islamic militants attacked the Parliament. Only 12 people were killed, but not compared to what's happened now, and that almost led to a war between India and Pakistan.
Whatever happens in this region is so, so difficult and dangerous because of the flash point it centers on. As I say, though it has come at a time right in the aftermath of the warmest outreach by Pakistan to India in decades.
...
CNN: What is, in all of this world picture, Christiane, what is the significance of this?
Amanpour: Well, this is deeply significant, obviously, because it is such a complex and coordinated attack on multitudinous targets, multitudinous locations. Obviously, a large number of militants or terrorists who have taken part in this, and they have engaged the Indian forces, the police and security forces. It's not like they just put bombs somewhere and allowed them to go off, and either they were suicide attackers who got killed or they were able to remotely detonate their bombs.
What they've done is not just attack, take hostages, but engage also with the security forces.
So this really ratchets it up a very significant level. And it's been coming for about 20 years, these attacks. Small in the last couple of decades, but in the last 10 years or so, particularly since 9/11, there have been a number of very significant attacks blamed by the Indian forces on Islamic militants.
...
This is very, very dangerous in this part of the world. Mumbai is India's not just gateway to the nation; it's its economic and financial hub, and it's its cultural hub as well, having the Bollywood and the other film production studios there.
Nobody quite knows who it is and why they have done it. This is the thing that is very difficult and dangerous at the moment. This little-known group, if it's true that they exist, have claimed responsibility, although that has not been confirmed, so-called Deccan Mujahedeen, and what is the motive?
There has obviously for many, many years been a type of feelings by India that, say, 150 or so million Muslims who are in the minority are feeling sort of hard done by in terms of the Hindu majority. There are also complaints by Indian Muslims about the way Kashmir is progressing, that enclave, and that is a huge, huge flashpoint.
But what's really amazing is that often, it's blamed on tensions with Pakistan. And yet, this comes at a time where the president of Pakistan has -- the new president -- has really made an unprecedented overture to India in terms of trying to warm up relations, trying to secure a lasting peace. And just today, Indian and Pakistani officials were having meetings, and they ended it with a joint declaration that they wanted to cooperate on ending terrorism and combating terrorism.
CNN: Christiane, do you see any connection with the recent American elections and this?
Amanpour: Well, it's hard to tell. People would say that it takes a lot longer than a few weeks to plan something like this. It's difficult to tell. I'm sure there will be a huge amount of analysis in the upcoming days and weeks.
What is going to be vital is whatever information the Indian security forces can get from some of these terrorists, militants, who've apparently some may have been captured alive. Obviously, there apparently have been some who have been killed as well. All of this will provide some of those missing pieces of the puzzle. Who are these people? What is their motive?
Just today, there is an interview with the U.S. Marine Corps commandant as basically saying that al Qaeda's focus now is Pakistan. There had been some thought that maybe al Qaeda was in the past trying to launch its attacks also in India, but the Indian secret services and the security services say that they don't have a presence there. But Pakistan is a very, very big worry. It's a failing state. Afghanistan is practically a failed state right now, even after the U.S. in 2001 sent al Qaeda and the Taliban packing.
There's a very difficult and dangerous situation on this subcontinent that really has been the focus of a lot of attention right now, and indeed, the incoming president has said that he wants to step up the number of U.S. forces. U.S. commanders want more forces in that region as well, not just Afghanistan, but to cope with Pakistan as well.
CNN: As you said, there have been a lot of incidents since the year 2000 in India. Why is this one getting so much particular attention? There was one with over 200 deaths.
Amanpour: Well, about 180 in 2006. But those were sort of multiple bombings in trains and railway stations. But this is one night with, so far, according to our sources, at least 87 people killed, and it's a brazen attack on the most visible elements and symbols and structures of the economic, the cultural, the tourist, the international hub, as I said, the gateway to India -- which is the world's largest democracy -- which is not a failed state by any stretch of the imagination. Which has a unified political structure, which has an army and security forces. India is not Pakistan or Afghanistan, and yet this has been able to happen here.
And why is it getting so much attention? Because so many more people than ever before have been killed in one fell swoop, and it's ongoing, and these people launched pitched battles with the security forces, and they still have hostages, and it appears they deliberately targeted Westerners.
|
|
Reply
| | | From: _Xer | Sent: 11/27/2008 6:44 AM |
| You may be wondering, 'golly, why is Xer freaking out?' Because we are going to India again in January! |
|
Reply
| | | From: _Xer | Sent: 11/27/2008 6:45 AM |
| My stomach is very upset..... |
|
Reply
| |
Xer, I have been following the "story" in the NYTimes. I do the NYTimes and SeattleTimes first thing in the morning and usually in the late afternoon.
oc...thanks for your real life input. Do you have the Facebook page/link? |
|
Reply
| | | From: _Xer | Sent: 11/27/2008 9:37 PM |
Sorry, to be confusing, Coot. The blog was not mine. We took students to India two years ago, and will again next year, but that blog is someone from Seattle University. We live in Olympia. Also we don't take students to Mumbai, but to the other side of the subcontinent. It's just, when I read it, I thought it might be interesting to you all as it was to me. Wish I could provide you the Facebook link. It might be possible to find it with an astute Google search? Let me know if you find it. I need to join the family's celebrations. Couldn't sleep last night, so getting a very late start today.
Best,
Xer |
|
Reply
| | | From: _Xer | Sent: 11/27/2008 9:41 PM |
Oh, Coot. It still scares the snot out of me. There are many ramifications for us.
...later |
|
Reply
| | | From: _Xer | Sent: 11/28/2008 7:57 PM |
| Watching CNN as I type. It is live. There was just an explosion at the Taj hotel. Now rifle shots are ringing out regularly... and the idiots cut to commercials!!! aaaaargh |
|
|
First
Previous
2-9 of 9
Next
Last
|
|
|
Free Forum Hosting
Important Announcement
Return to General