India Strikes Back in Mumbai

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India Strikes Back in Mumbai
November 28, 2008
Associated Press

MUMBAI, India - Commandos ended a siege of the luxury Oberoi hotel on Friday while other forces rappelled from helicopters to storm a besieged Jewish center, two days after a chain of militant attacks across India's financial center left at least 143 people dead and the city in panic.

While explosions and gunfire continued intermittently at the elegant Taj Mahal hotel Friday afternoon, officials said commandos had killed two gunmen inside the nearby Oberoi hotel and ended the attack there.

"The hotel is under our control," J.K. Dutt, director general of India's elite National Security Guard commando unit, told reporters, adding that 24 bodies had been found. Dozens of people - including a man clutching a baby - had been evacuated from Oberoi earlier Friday.

The airborne assault on the center run by the ultra-orthodox Jewish outreach group Chabad Lubavitch was punctuated by gunshots and explosions - and at one point an intense exchange of fire that lasted several minutes - as forces cleared it floor by floor, according to an Associated Press reporter at the scene. By Friday afternoon, the commandos had control of the top two floors.

One camouflaged commando came out with a bandage on his forehead, while soldiers fired smoke grenades into the building and a steady stream of gunfire reverberated across narrow alleys.


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