The sheer brutality of Mumbai- - -
What has happened in Mumbai remains tonight almost impossible to encapsulate. The sheer wanton brutality appears to be a step change beyond anything we have seen before.
What happened in Mumbai involved around some 20 men going into the station, a restaurant, several hotels, a Jewish centre, and spraying machine gun fire at women, children and random people, some Muslim, some Hindu, some Jewish, some Christian, some nothing.
They saw the whites of the eyes of the people they killed. They had time to reload the magazines of their guns, time even to think.
I suppose the nearest parallel would be the school killing at Colombine, in Colorado. It’s hard to determine who they are because the group they claim to be has never been heard of. And in India extremism has often been interwoven with sheer criminal gang activity.
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ONLINE: MORE MUMBAI COVERAGE
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Timeline: Major attacks in India
http://tinyurl.com/6d3oj6
Mumbai attacks: in pictures
http://tinyurl.com/5jy5ct
Mumbai terror attacks: interactive map
http://tinyurl.com/5nfyqy
Blog frenzy on Mumbai attacks
http://tinyurl.com/6b433c
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So tonight, as we go to air, it is still unclear how near the end the incident is. It is unclear who is perpetrating it. And it is unclear what the consequence of it all will be. We have a huge team working on it, both here and in the region.
But without doubt 26/11 will go down as another ratchet up in litany of international criminality, in which both politics and religion appear to play a part.
Newsnight email just in from Gavin Esler, BBC2, 27 November 2008. Excerpt:
"This is a horrific incident which has shocked and outraged people around the world" - Prime Minister Gordon Brown on the Mumbai terror attacks.- - -
India
Who did it and why? We'll have the latest on the terrorist attacks and the hostage situation, plus analysis of the kind of groups who may have carried out these attacks. And the big question: was this internal terrorism or an attack given support from outside India's borders as the Prime Minister of India claims? We will also discuss the future of India after this major terror attack.
Sudan
Gulf rich nations are ploughing money into Sudan - using their fertile land to grow food for their people. This at a time when the people of Darfur are starving and relying on handouts from the international
community.
UPDATE ON FRIDAY 28 NOVEMBER 2008
Excerpt from Nov 28 Snowmail authored by Jon Snow:
More than 48 hours after the initial assault on key parts of Mumbai by some 20-25 assailants the picture is still very far from clear.- - -
The Taj Hotel - which was declared yesterday to be down to one gunman - has today seen sporadic shooting and evidence of more than one, some say five or six gunmen.
The Indian security Forces are clearly having considerable difficulty in flushing them out.
The death toll stands at 143 according to some sources, with eight foreigners among them.
WERE ANY BRITS INVOLVED?
We're trying to harden up reports on several news agencies that seven of the gunmen may have been British. Other reports suggest they came from Leeds, but there is absolutely no official verification.
Krishnan is anchoring the programme tonight out of Mumbai and will have all the latest. He'll be on the ground with our diplomatic editor Lindsey Hilsum and our Asia correspondent Nick Paton Walsh.
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ONLINE: MORE MUMBAI COVERAGE
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Latest from Mumbai
http://tinyurl.com/5vpwwa
Mumbai attacks: in pictures
http://tinyurl.com/5jy5ct
Mumbai terror attacks: interactive map
http://tinyurl.com/5nfyqy
24 bodies found at Oberoi hotel
http://tinyurl.com/5t6t8q
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ON MORE 4 NEW TONIGHT
We'll have the very latest in our time from Mumbai, with updates from Lindsey and Nick, as well as analysis here.
How justified are suggestions of an intelligence failure on the part of India's counter terror network? And why is it that India's best and brightest commandoes are still engaged in what feels like a small war, rather than a terrorist encounter, 48 hours after the first shots were fired?
And in the studio we'll be speaking with one British citizen, newly returned from his own private terror in Mumbai.
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EXCERPT FROM NEWSNIGHT BBC2
FRIDAY 28TH NOVEMBER BY GAVIN ESLER
Quote for today- - -
"I hope, and I'm sure, like Londoners, Bombayites are resilient, brave and will withstand this onslaught on the city" - British businessman Sir Gulam Noon, who was forced to barricade himself and several colleagues into a room at the Taj Mahal Palace hotel during the terror attacks in India. Watch the interview here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7754145.stm
Mumbai
More chaos and confusion in Mumbai. Fresh explosions and gunfire at the Taj Palace Hotel and loud blasts at the Jewish centre where commandos have attempted to free several hostages. We - along with the rest of the British media - are investigating comments from the Indian Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh that British nationals are among the captured terrorists. Among our guests tonight, a former CIA operative who has worked in India.
UPDATE ON SATURDAY 29 NOVEMBER 2008
Breaking news from BBC 07:26 GMT:
Head of Indian commandos says siege at Taj Mahal hotel in Mumbai is now over, after three days of violence which left at least 144 dead.Bravo Indian commandos. They deserve medals.
For more details: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news
I sincerely hope there won't be a back lash,which could result in unending bloody riots
ReplyDeleteI share my views here