Community | November 29, 2008 | 8 comments

Mumbai terrorists wanted to kill 5000

source: http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/11/29/india.attacks/index.html

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InformedTexan
MUMBAI, India (CNN) -- An Indian official said the coordinated terrorist attacks that killed at least 183 people in nine sites across Mumbai this week could have been much worse.

"We found bullets with them, hand grenades, bombs," R.R. Patil, deputy chief minister of Maharashtra state, said at a news conference. "Based on our investigation, we believe they had planned to kill 5,000 people."

Indian authorities also were investigating whether some of the attackers may have gotten away, blending into Mumbai's 18 million residents.

Another top official at the news conference pointed to a connection with Pakistan.

"Yes, the captured terrorist was Pakistani, as the home minister and others have said," said Vilasrao Deshmukh, chief minister of Maharashtra, where Mumbai is located.

"As far as the others, the accomplices, the investigation, the interrogation is under way and the details will become public very soon."

Police and soldiers continued their room-by-room sweep of the Taj Mahal Hotel late Saturday to make sure all trapped guests had been evacuated and no gunmen remained 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.

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 that indicated calls had been placed to Jalalabad, Afghanistan.

The boat, intelligence officials told CNN-IBN, had been hijacked. The captain was found dead, lying face down with his hands bound behind his back. Four crew members were missing.

Zardari -- whose wife, Benazir Bhutto, was assassinated a year ago -- said he was "as committed as can be" to wiping out the terrorists because they also threaten him and his country.

"They may not be the same individuals, but they are definitely the same forces with the same mindset."
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8 comments // Mumbai terrorists wanted to kill 5000

  • Dmitri_Molotov
  • barbara3d
    • 0
      barbara3d  

    • I guess I remember the "first" terrorist. It was in the 60s or 70s ...they would hi-jack airplanes to take them to different places. I thought this was bad. How the world of terrorism has grown. It is only a matter of time before they get their hands on a dirty bomb or larger nuke, then 'game over'. We just cannot let up on these people. As horrible as it sounds....and a lot of people dont agree, but they are like locusts that must be destroyed. OR, some may be saved by programs to counter their ways of believing. The root is starting early and poisoning the minds of the youth...even then, most of Bin Ladens children are probably not terrorists. It all lies within the person and if they can "think" for themselves or if they are just a piece of clay to be molded by a stronger personality.

    • 3 years ago
  • extracrazykiwi2008
  • RCS
  • samthesixth
    • 0
      samthesixth  

    • The Incompetency of Jihad. Thank God they didn't reach their goals and that one got cold feet about the virginal paradise, decided to live and spilled the beans.

    • 3 years ago
  • starr111
  • AveryMoore
    • 0
      AveryMoore  

    • The people whose deeds were most heroic were staff at the luxury hotels. In fact they saved more people, kept more people inside and outside the hotels informed of what was happening. More hotel staff were killed, than any other group.

      These same employees had zero protection but remained inside to help while the guests fled...

      Sending less than 20 people to kill 5000? Quotable yes, believable, no. Yes, apparently the attackers were equipped with quantities of RDX a kind of plastique explosive - but how they could kill 5000? That will take considerable explaining.

      There's two interesting maps of Mumbai on line which show where the attackers landed and what they attacked.

      http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&ll=18.922445,72.832242&spn=0.007054,0.007864&z=17&msid=105055855763538009401.00045c9d8b16af3ad1008

      The embassies of their supposed mortal foes were near where they landed yet for some reason none were hit.

      Again, supposedly, the attackers believed this was a hit-and-run operation. After all this carnage and leaving themselves no way out they thought they would escape.

      Completely merciless idiots.

    • 3 years ago
  • ivxx
    • 0
      ivxx  

    • So if they planned to kill 5000 and actually killed far less than 500 I guess you could say that the Indian government and Mumbai police didn't a great job, all things considered.

    • 3 years ago
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