Terrorist attack hotels in Mumbai - 183 dead hundreds injured

[Felix The Assassin]

Originally Posted by Variol (Farseer) Elmwood Sheesh Felix, you really ARE The Assassin!

I take it you have never sneaked a peak at my profile picture?
I teach: target acquisition; ammunition; short range close combat tactics; long range marksmanship; plan and conduct gunnery, and training management to 85-100 mid grade Army and Marine candidates annually. Thou I'm no longer an operative, my skills, as well as those of my nine colleagues, are passed to the future lethal assassins of the nation. And yes, I have worked with "Sean" from Canada! Last I heard of him he was promoted to acquisitions officer for special projects, which has always made me wonder if that is how Cpl. "Bill" managed to make his validated shot @ 2,430 meters in Afghanistan using U.S. ammo.

[Yorick]

Originally Posted by wellard root cause of all this horrid death - religion (again)

And why not "ideology" or "thoughts" or "desires". They're all present and play a part in the terrorists motives.

If anything, the TYPE of religion is the issue: what is believed. Not "religion" or having beliefs per se.

I mean otherwise what is everyone to do? Mutely walk around not believing anything? Just robots without frontal lobes?

Everyone has a worldview. Everyone has faith in something, even if it's faith that their doubts are more true than anything else.

PS. Oh, and people love to point the finger at religion when a few muslims kill 80 people, but ignore the 180 million Muslims in Indonesia just getting on with their lives, having kids loving each other and trying to survive in peace. Is religion to blame for all the good stuff too, all the purpose and life it gives people? Or just the bad stuff when some people commit atrocities in a religions name?

[Variol (Farseer) Elmwood]

Originally Posted by wellard root cause of all this horrid death - religion (again)

yyyup, you're probably right,
I have not heard if this is being done in the name of "Ala" or just for the sake of terror.

I echo what Yorick is saying though. We all seem to get thrown into the same "religious" pot.

Christianity has made a bad name over the centuries with the atrocities committed in the name of God. I think we have learned a lot since then and it does not happen any more: except for the odd extremists, which we must always be wary of.

I don't know what these people are after. I wonder if most of them know it themselves.

The only real good thing (if you can call it that) is that is reminds me of how lucky I am to live here in Canada. Even my customer (they are all in the US) said yesterday "you never here anything bad happening in Canada".

Of course we have violence of sorts every day, but I know what she meant.

I can certainly empathize with you Felix. These stories really make my blood boil. I hate guns; I don't even like to touch them, but when hear this sort of thing, it does make me want to "take up arms".
But, I choose the latter. I pray and hope for peace. I pray I understand what has taken these people to the point where they would kill another human being. I can't even kill a bug; 'cept mosquito's..

[Bungleau]

Originally Posted by wellard root cause of all this horrid death - religion (again)

It's bandying semantics, but I won't lay the root cause at religion. At the misinterpretation of religion, perhaps, but not religion itself.

I'm reminded of a line from Tucker, a book by Old West author Louis L'Amour. Shell Tucker is talking with his dad after Shell started hanging out with some local "tough" guys.

"Time of trouble," I objected, "a man who can handle a gun is good to have around, and on your side." "Sure," pa would say, "but when trouble is over folks can't get shut of him fast enough."

Shell Tucker learns what real men are about... not the wannabe big men that often seem much bigger than they really are.

[thecarrotdude]

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/200...er_attack.html

[Variol (Farseer) Elmwood]

thanks for the update cd,

They still don't know who's responsible,

[Felix The Assassin]

Update, close to the bottom it gives some info on who they were.

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsO...4AP75S20081129

Commandos mop up last of Mumbai militants
By Rina Chandran and Greg Beitchman Rina Chandran And Greg Beitchman – Sat Nov 29, 3:24 am ET

MUMBAI (Reuters) – Indian commandos killed the last Islamist gunmen holed up at Mumbai's Taj Mahal hotel on Saturday, ending a three-day battle at landmarks across India's financial capital that killed at least 195 people.

"Taj is under our control," Mumbai police chief Hasan Gafoor told Reuters, shortly after the building was raked by heavy gunfire as flames leapt from windows.

At least three militants and one trooper were killed after a running gunbattle through a maze of corridors, rooms and halls, the country's commando chief, Jyoti Krishna Dutt, told reporters.

The gunmen had set parts of the hotel ablaze as they played cat and mouse with scores of India's best-trained commandos, known as the Black Cats.

Sniffer dogs were taken into the iconic 105-year-old hotel and ambulances arrived. Some commandos did a final sweep of the rooms, while others boarded buses to pull out, looking exhausted.

Ratan Tata, the chairman of the Tata Group of companies which owns the hotel, arrived at the premises later in the morning. He may be shocked by what he finds when he is finally let inside.

"The lobby is an absolute mess," said Manish Mundra, a volunteer who was bringing food to security forces and had been inside the hotel. "The furniture is broken, there is water everywhere they are never going to be able to reuse any of that stuff."

Black streaks of soot stained the grey bricks, white balconies and red-tiled roofs of the hotel's facade. Two of its corner stained-glass windows were broken.

The Taj Mahal was the last battleground after three days of intense fighting in various parts of the city of 18 million.

Several newspapers said some of the militants had checked into the Taj hotel some days or weeks before the attacks, while the Times of India said they had rented an apartment in the city a few months ago pretending to be students.

On Friday, an army general said the gunmen appeared to be "very, very familiar" with the layout of the hotel, giving them a crucial advantage over his men. They were also well trained.

"At times we found them matching us in combat and movement," one commando told the Hindustan Times. "They were either army regulars or have done a long stint of commando training."

DEATH TOLL

The local disaster control room said at least 195 people had been killed, the death toll rising as bodies were collected from the luxury Taj and nearby Trident-Oberoi hotels, scene of another siege that ended on Friday.

Well-dressed but haggard-looking guests were let back to their rooms in the Trident wing of the hotel on Saturday morning to collect their belongings.

Staff said they would re-open that wing on Wednesday, but not the Oberoi wing which was badly hit by a long gunbattle.

The Trident lobby was covered in broken glass, with bullet holes in the glass stair banisters and in the doors leading into the Opium bar. A grand piano was left unscathed, but cars parked outside were also riddled with bullet holes.

India blamed the strike on "elements" from Pakistan, raising tensions between the nuclear-armed rivals. Pakistan said the two countries faced a common enemy and it would send a representative of its spy agency to share intelligence.

But Islamabad backtracked from an earlier promise to send the chief of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), a move unlikely to calm Indian tempers and raise fresh questions about who is in charge of the shadowy agency.

The militants' action has struck at the heart of a city that is the engine room of an economic boom that has made India a favorite emerging market.

It is also home to the "Bollywood" film industry, the epitome of glamour in a country still blighted by poverty.

An Indian state minister said one of the militants arrested was a Pakistani national and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh warned of "a cost" if India's neighbors did not take action to stop their territory being used to launch attacks.

The arrested man has confessed to being a member of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba militant group, which has long fought Indian forces in disputed Kashmir and was blamed for an attack on India's parliament in December 2001, newspapers said.

But Pakistan's Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi struck a conciliatory note and promised full cooperation.

"Whoever has done this is neither your friend nor our friend," he told reporters in New Delhi. "We are not responsible for this, nor is it in our interest to get involved in something like this."

The attacks were carried out by at least ten young men armed with rifles and grenades, some of whom arrived by sea, who fanned out across Mumbai on Wednesday night to attack sites popular with tourists and business executives. Of these nine had been killed, Indian police said.

Authorities said 18 foreigners were among the dead. At least 295 people were wounded.

Three Germans, five Americans, one Australian, a Briton, one Canadian, two French, an Israeli, an Italian, a Japanese, a Singaporean and a Thai, were among the dead, according to various governments.

(Reporting by New Delhi, Mumbai and Islamabad bureau; Writing by Simon Denyer; Editing by Alistair Scrutton and Valerie Lee)

[Stratos]

Gotta love the name Ratan Tata.

Anyway, Kashmir related militants were suspected pretty early in the attack.

[Yorick]

Originally Posted by Variol (Farseer) Elmwood yyyup, you're probably right, I have not heard if this is being done in the name of "Ala" or just for the sake of terror. I echo what Yorick is saying though. We all seem to get thrown into the same "religious" pot. Christianity has made a bad name over the centuries with the atrocities committed in the name of God. I think we have learned a lot since then and it does not happen any more: except for the odd extremists, which we must always be wary of. I don't know what these people are after. I wonder if most of them know it themselves. The only real good thing (if you can call it that) is that is reminds me of how lucky I am to live here in Canada. Even my customer (they are all in the US) said yesterday "you never here anything bad happening in Canada". Of course we have violence of sorts every day, but I know what she meant. I can certainly empathize with you Felix. These stories really make my blood boil. I hate guns; I don't even like to touch them, but when hear this sort of thing, it does make me want to "take up arms". But, I choose the latter. I pray and hope for peace. I pray I understand what has taken these people to the point where they would kill another human being. I can't even kill a bug; 'cept mosquito's..

I just don't know why we don't all start throwing generalisations around. Like:
1. Ah yes! It's the fault of property ownership once again!
2. Tsk tsk it's all because we have nations.
3. It's groups. There should be no groups allowed only individuals.

The whole shebang about Christianity getting a bad rap because of the crusades is the most tired hoohar around.
1. "Christendom" lost. The crusades were a disaster on every front and won by Islam.
2. "Going to war in the name of Jesus" is a contradiction if it's physical and involves killing. Surely that's evidence of a serious misunderstanding of christian theology.
3. You can check a person's stated beliefs against what they do. Generally speaking, and with exceptions, violence and war are the result of either religions FAILING, or religions being misused by people to motivate others to fight for them (ie. old men who preach martyrdom to Palestinian kids, but who don't martyr themselves)

I'd like to make one last generalisation about this conflict in Mumbai.

It's all the fault of the English. Wherever they ruled and then partitioned, violence has resulted: Palestine (partitioned into Israel and Jordan) Ireland (Ulster Unionists vs IRA) and India (partitioned into India, Pakistan and Bangladesh).

So it's all the fault of English bureaucracy. Roight????

Or we could just say that each individual is responsible for their own actions, and that the fault of what's happening in Mumbai is directly because these people have decided that violence and ending human lives to achieve their aims is somehow justifiable, and have acted accordingly.

[Yorick]

Originally Posted by wellard root cause of all this horrid death - religion (again)

Wellard, what would you like those of us with faith to do?
Just take your word and say "ah yes, my religious faith that gives me hope, and purpose and actually keeps me alive each day has somehow caused people in Mumbai to die. Therefore I shall go against what I believe is right and true and stop trying to be peacefull, selfless, kind and patient and just give into to my baser desires and addictions, and pretty much self-destruct."

Is that what I should do? And will that make the situation any better?
Because if it's not a solution why are you posting this????????