FOCUS ON ABANDONED BOAT AS MUMBAI SIEGE ENDS: As investigators work to unmask the group responsible for the Mumbai terror attacks which have killed at least 183 people, police and soldiers continued to search the Taj Mahal Hotel room by room Saturday to make sure all trapped guests have left and no terrorists remain hidden. Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari pledged his country's full cooperation with the investigation and vowed to take "the strictest action" if it is found the terrorists were based in Pakistan. However, investigators probing the attacks said they found cell phones and a global navigational device on an abandoned boat floating off the coast of Mumbai, CNN's sister station CNN-IBN reported. The television station showed photographs of a phone's log which showed calls had been placed to Jalalabad in Pakistan.
U.S. INTELLIGENCE FOCUSES ON PAKISTANI GROUP: American intelligence and counterterrorism officials said Friday that there was mounting evidence that a Pakistani militant group based in Kashmir, most likely Lashkar-e-Taiba, was responsible for this weeks deadly attacks in Mumbai. The officials cautioned that they had reached no firm conclusions about who was responsible for the attacks, or how they were planned and carried out. Nevertheless, they said that evidence gathered in the past two days pointed to a role for Lashkar-e-Taiba or possibly another group based in Kashmir, Jaish-e-Muhammad, which also has a track record of attacks against India. The terrorist siege is likely to threaten Indias already murky economic future and thwart plans to transform the city into a regional financial center, economists said. TERRORISTS SEEMED TO BE SURE OF TAJ HOTEL TERRAIN: The battle-scarred Marine Commandos, engaged to flush out terrorists from the Taj hotel, are surprised at the level of training their adversaries evidently received and the money and the massive firepower at their disposal. The commandos have also been shocked by the familiarity and ease with which the terrorists operated inside the Taj and the Trident. The Marine Commandos, popularly known as Marcos, are men handpicked by the Indian Navy to undertake combat and rescue operations on sea and, if required, on land. Maharashtra chief secretary Johnny Joseph was quick to seek their help on Wednesday evening till the National Security Guards (NSG) team arrived from Delhi on Thursday morning. The Marcos managed to rescue almost 200 people, locked up in a room on the second floor of the Taj's new wing, on Thursday morning. ``The terrorists fired several rounds at us though they did run away to another floor after the Marcos closed in from all sides,'' Joseph said. The Marcos found a rucksack, containing seven fully loaded AK-47 magazines, 400 empty rounds of AK-47 and four made-in-China grenades. The hotels had four-five terrorists, each carrying haversacks, leading commandos to admit that the terrorists together had enough firepower to remain holed up for days together if they were not gunned down. The bag the terrorists left behind also contained seven credit cards and a Mauritian identity card, all apparently belonging to one person. The bag had Rs 6,840 and $1,200 (about Rs 60,000). --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "WebTV Dawgs/Dittos" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/WebTV-Pals -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
