Mumbai Attack

Indian city Mumbai exploded into chaos early Thursday morning as gunmen launched a series of attacks across south the country's commercial capital, killing scores of people and taking hostages in two luxury hotels frequented by Westerners.

More than six hours after the attacks, fighting was still reported in the Taj Mahal Hotel, the Hotel Oberoi and Colaba Market, site of a number of restaurants, he said. There is a hostage situation in both of these five-star hotels, the Taj Palace Hotel, which is probably the best-known hotel in Mumbai, and the Oberoi Hotel, which is only a five minute drive away from the Taj.

There was also an attack on the Café Leopold, one of the most popular venues for tourists in the city, as well as at hospitals and the police headquarters in southern Bombay, the area where most of the attacks took place. Blood smeared the floor of the Chhatrapati Shivaji rail station, where attackers sprayed bullets into the crowded terminal

Gunfire was reported at the Cama Hospital, suggesting that the terrorists were seeking to prevent the wounded from receiving medical care. Another British guest at the Taj Mahal hotel, where the England cricket team had been staying two weeks ago, said that he had managed to escape the terrorists after finding himself among a dozen people who were herded together by two heavily armed men and taken up to the hotel's upper floors

An organisation calling itself the Deccan Mujahideen claimed it was behind the attacks. Security officials claimed no knowledge of the from the Deccan plateau that stretches from Bombay to southern India.

Source :BBC n CNN