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MUMBAI: Indian commandos were locked in heavy fighting inside a Mumbai hotel Saturday as they battled to end two-day-old assault by Pakistan-linked militants which has left up to 155 dead, including foreigners.
Heavy gunfire and explosions rocked the historic Taj Mahal hotel, where a tiny group of heavily armed gunmen were engaged in a fight to the death some 56 hours after the start of the killing spree across India's financial capital.
Elite troops had already stormed a Mumbai Jewish centre and killed two gunmen - but also found five dead Israeli hostages, including a US-based rabbi and his wife, who were murdered as the commandos closed in.
The other luxury hotel that was attacked, the Oberoi/Trident, was declared clear of militants late Friday, with scores of trapped guests rescued and 24 bodies found.
"They were the kind of people with no remorse - anybody and whomsoever came in front of them they fired," an Indian commando leader said of the young gunmen who slipped into Mumbai on Wednesday evening.
"We could have got those terrorists but for so many hotel guests," he said.
Indian media reports said up to 155 people were dead and 327 others wounded. TV channels described the attacks as "India's 9/11."
Around 18 foreigners were among those killed, including the Israelis, two Americans, two French nationals, a German, a Japanese, a Canadian, two Australians, a British Cypriot, an Italian and a Singaporean.
Nine militants were confirmed dead and one captured. Indian intelligence sources said the detained gunman had confessed to coming from Pakistan.
One group entered the city by boat, while others were believed to have been inside the city - stockpiling arms and explosives - well before the attacks were launched.
A government minister said the overall toll could rise further as more corpses are recovered.
"Once the bodies are collected, the number of deaths might go up to 200," India's Minister of State for Home Affairs Sri Prakash Jaiswal told the Press Trust of India.
The crisis risked escalating into a major crisis between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan, with Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee saying that "some elements in Pakistan are responsible " for the assault.
A number of Indian officials suggested the militants were from the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba - notorious for a deadly assault on the Indian parliament in 2001 that almost pushed New Delhi and Islamabad to war.
But Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani insisted his country had "nothing to do with the attacks" and Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi appealed to India not to get drawn into a "blame game" that could spark a dangerous confrontation.
The two countries have fought three wars since gaining independence from Britain in 1947.
Survivors have given terrifying accounts of the carnage in the hotels. Many said they hid in the dark for hours, barricaded in rooms or hiding under beds, inside wardrobes or bathrooms.
"I cannot believe what I have seen in the last 36 hours. I have seen dead bodies, blood everywhere and only heard gunshots," said Muneer Al Mahaj after he was rescued.
South African security guard Faisul Nagel was having dinner with colleagues at a restaurant in the Taj hotel when the assault began. They barricaded the restaurant and moved everyone into the kitchen.
"We basically put the lights off in the restaurant just to create an element of surprise. And we armed ourselves with kitchen knives and meat cleavers," he told AFP.
They ended up helping around 120 people escape - including a 90-year-old woman who had to be carried in her chair down 25 flights of stairs.
Witnesses also said the attackers had specifically rounded up people with US and British passports.
Both the United States and Britain expressed condolences and offered to help investigate the assault on Mumbai, which has been hit by terror attacks before. Nearly 190 people were killed in train bombings in 2006.
US President George W. Bush said he was "deeply saddened," and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said he was sending police to help with the probe.
India's newspapers laid much of the blame at the door of the intelligence agencies, which they said had failed spectacularly in allowing a handful of gunmen to slip in by boat and wreak such havoc and devastation.
The Indian Express singled out Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, saying he bore "special responsibility" because he had been "partly distracted" by modernising the country's foreign policy and its economy.
On Saturday, the capital area of New Delhi was holding state elections, with the polls seen as a key political indicator ahead of national elections dues by May next year.
The opposition Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has been citing the attacks as proof that Singh's governing Congress party is weak on terrorism.
- AFP/yb
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