As NSG commandos closed in on Nariman House, a Jewish residential complex in Colaba in south Mumbai, for a final assault, two explosions within a span of ten to 15 minutes slowed down their operation. A third explosion was heard at 4.47 am. Mumbai Time.
The Times of India reports that fighting continues during Commando Mop-Up assaults.
The operation to clean up the Nariman House is still going on," Director General of National Security Guard (NSG) J K Dutt told reporters adding "it is just a matter of time and it will end soon".
Dutt said the operations at Hotel Taj was by and large over with just one injured terrorist still holed-up in the building. "He has been injured and I think we will be able to mop up the operation there very quickly," he said.
Both the incumbent Bush administration and Obama and his transition team sent out strong messages of condemnation of the attacks and their backing for India even as they coordinated their response in the transition phase in the United States. President Bush phoned Prime Minister Manmohan Singh from Camp David early on Thursday morning to offer support and US help in investigation. Soon after, an FBI team from Los Angeles, consisting of bomb and forensic experts, left for Mumbai to help in the investigation.
The Washington Post reports that the attackers may have been trained outside of India.
Officials in India, Europe and the United States said likely culprits included Islamist networks based in Pakistan that have received support in the past from Pakistan's intelligence agencies.
Analysts said this week's attacks surpassed previous plots carried out by domestic groups in terms of complexity, the number of people involved and their success in achieving their primary goal: namely, to spread fear.
"This is a new, horrific milestone in the global jihad," said
Bruce Riedel, a former South Asia analyst for the CIA and National Security Council and author of the book, "The Search for al-Qaeda." "No indigenous Indian group has this level of capability. The goal is to damage the symbol of India's economic renaissance, undermine investor confidence and provoke an India-Pakistani crisis."
Meanwhile, Pakistan
asks for calm in not jumping to conclusions that Pakistan was behind the attack.
