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India Investigates, Mourns in Wake of Mumbai Siege


The three-day terrorist siege on Mumbai is over, and the focus has shifted to aiding survivors, assessing the damage, mourning the dead and identifying those responsible for the carnage. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Saturday gathered the country's top military and intelligence chiefs to discuss a course of action. India's special secretary for internal security, M.L. Kumawat says surveillance of the coastline will be improved immediately, after some of the terrorists reached Mumbai by boat.

The siege ended today, Saturday when commandos completed combat operations at the Taj hotel, some 60 hours after teams of militants launched coordinated attacks against multiple targets across the city.

Nearly 200 people were killed in the assault, including at least 22 foreigners. High-level Indian security officers are also among the dead, and television images on Saturday show somber, formal funeral processions.

At least 11 militants were killed during the siege, while another was taken into police custody. Indian authorities say the detained attacker is Pakistani. Officials are working to determine what group was behind this assault on the financial capital. U.S. intelligence officials said the attack was consistent with the work of the Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar e-Taiba.

Indian officials have also suggested the militants had links to Pakistan. But Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has said his country had nothing to do with the attacks. Shortly after the assault began, Indian media reports said a previously unknown group, called Deccan Mujahideen, had claimed responsibility. It is not clear if that claim is credible.

Commandos who confronted the militants at the Taj hotel say they were very well trained, heavily armed and had knowledge of the building. Indian commandos ended two other standoffs with militants on Friday at the Oberoi-Trident hotel and the Chabad House Jewish center.

The foreign dead include citizens of the United States, Canada, Japan, Thailand, Israel, France, Germany, Britain, Italy, Australia, Singapore and Mauritius. A plane carrying 77 people who escaped the attacks, including at least two European lawmakers, landed in Paris on Saturday. The vast majority of those passengers are European nationals.

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