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MUMBAI TERROR ATTACKS: Reports and Reactions
SUFFERING AND TRAGEDY: A Spiritual Perspective
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A Note to the Media & Press
Again, for those of us who would not be comfortable giving $$ to Chabad, the JDC is in India working to help Jews and others in this terrible situation – DONATE. Also, the AJWS has responded:
American Jewish World Service mourns the tragic loss of innocent lives in Mumbai, India. Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims, their families and the people of India. AJWS’s 70 partner organizations and volunteers throughout India are safe. AJWS will continue to support the building of peaceful civil society and democracy in India….Each day, AJWS helps thousands of people in Africa, Asia, and the Americas move beyond poverty, illiteracy, disaster and war. AJWS believes that empowering individuals and communities regardless of race, religion, or nationality advances human dignity and transforms the world for the better. DONATE
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The Jewish Sabbath is now over in both Mumbai and Israel so more reports are filtering in:
Israeli victim Yohevet Orpaz, age 60 [Ironically, Or-Paz means Light of Peace in Hebrew & Spanish]
Speaking by phone from the Consulate just after the end of Shabbat in Mumbai, Haim Hoshen, the Foreign Ministry’s Head of the Asia and South Asia Department, said he preferred not to discuss the exact number of missing Israelis…Indian commandos were still combing the floors of Nariman House for other casualties. Hoshen said six members of Israel’s Burial Society (ZAKA) had arrived to help identify the bodies. “We are continuing to deal with all of the sorrowful events here,” he said. “We will soon go and meet a victim’s family in order to officially inform them of the death of their loved ones.” Hoshen refrained from indicating how many bodies had been identified by Saturday evening. The Consulate was also working closely with Indian authorities to ensure a swift transfer of the bodies to Israel for burial, Hoshen said. Hoshen said there was no doubt that the Chabad House was the target of a premeditated and planned assault, adding that security had been stepped up around the Consulate. “We are very aware [of the heightened danger]. As you can imagine, all of the necessary preparations have been made,” he said. Chabad activists who had arrived in Mumbai and who held a Shabbat meal for the remaining Jews in the city, including the parents of Rivka Holtzberg, Rabbi Shimon Rozenberg and his wife Yehudit, have been advised by Indian police not to disclose their movements. In an interview for the Chabad Website held minutes before the entrance of Shabbat in Mumbai, Chabad Rabbi Dov-Be’er Goldberg said he was hosting the Rozenbergs and two Israeli nationals who had survived a hostage ordeal at the Oberoi Trident hotel. “We have received instructions from the Indian police and Embassy staff not to discuss our location, since the Chabad House is now a terror target,” Goldberg said.
Nariman House victims may have been dead since Wednesday (The Lede @ NYT)
India Today – ‘Sandy U is dead’
India Today – Shankkar Aiyar : Salaam Bombay
India Today – ‘Please kill me, I have come to die’
Haaretz: Mumbai survivors: ‘After 36 hours, soldiers knocked on the hotel door’
Haaretz: Indian media react angrily to Israeli criticism of Chabad rescue operation
(IsraelNN.com) After more than 40 hours and a day-long siege by Indian commandos against Islamist terrorists holding eight Jews hostage in the Mumbai Chabad House, all were found murdered, including Chabad-Lubavitch emissary, Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife Rivka. Foreign Ministry sources told Israel National News just minutes before the start of the Sabbath in Israel that the victims also included two women who had been trapped on the top floor with the Holtzbergs. On Saturday night, the names of Rabbi Aryeh Leibish Teitelbaum of Jerusalem, son of the Volover Rebbe of Boro Park and son-in-law of the head of the Toldos Avraham Yitzhak Chassidic sect, and his co-worker Ben Tzion Korman of Bat Yam, were added to the list of victims. One of the two women who was killed, a Mexican national, had not yet been identified for publication, pending notification of next-of-kin. The other victim was identified as Yocheved Or-Paz, an Israeli woman in her sixties. The identities of two other Israeli victims were also being withheld pending notification to their families, which had been impossible due to the Sabbath. The Chabad House was one of 10 sites that were struck by some 25 terrorists who apparently infiltrated into Mumbai by sea and then fanned out through the city. By Saturday, nine of out 10 of the targets were finally free of terrorists, hostages and most of the victims; however, some 60 hours after the mass-casualty attack began, the city’s largest and most luxurious hotel, the Taj Mahal, was still not clear, and operations by Indian National Security Guards (NSG) continued into the night. …Indian army sources claimed that the terrorists had received commando training from the Pakistan Army and had been provided with boats and logistical support by the Mumbai underworld, according to India’s IBN Live television news.
Via BBC, The death toll is now up to at least 195 people and includes citizens of the USA, Canada, Mexico, UK, Israel, France, Greece, Italy, Japan, Thailand, Singapore, Pakistan & Australia as well as India – once all of the bodies are found, the death toll will rise dramatically.
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Apparently these creeps intended to murder many more people:
Times Now reports suggest that terrorist who was caught alive had confessed to investigating agencies that they had a plan to blow up the Taj Mahal hotel in Mumbai. The terrorists had enough explosives to blow up the Taj hotel. Sources have told the TV channel that they wanted to reduce the life-size building of Taj hotel to rubble. They also believed to have told about their plan to replicate a ‘JW Marriot’, happened at Islamabad, to the Mumbai hotel. In a sense to destroy the symbol of financial strength of the country and send shock-waves all across the globe, the terrorists wanted to do a 9/11 in India. The above revelation came from the 21 year old Azam Amir Kasav, who hails from tehsil Gipalpura in Pakistan’s Faridkot. On Wednesday-Thursday night Azam and his colleague opened fire at CST before creating havoc at Metro and then moving on to Girgaum Chowpatty in a stolen Skoda, and where they were intercepted by a team from the Gamdevi police station. Azam shot dead assistant police inspector Tukaram Umbale. But in that encounter Azam’s colleague was killed and he himself was injured in the hand. He pretended to be dead giving rise to the news that two terrorists had been killed. However as the ‘bodies’ were being taken to Nair Hospital, the accompanying cops figured that one of the men was breathing.
Taxi was meant to blow up Mumbai airport; plot failed (India Today): Shortly before the terrorists moved into their targets in South Mumbai, a black and yellow taxi, with three passengers and enough ammunition to bring down a dome, sped in the direction of the airport. Instead of taking a slip road that would have taken the passengers straight to the airport, the driver took the flyover which bypassed the airport, only to get stuck at a red light. At rush hour, the lights stayed red for long, at which the passengers berated the driver and asked him to cut the traffic lights. The driver moved on, but the wait turned out to be a minute or two too long. The car exploded. All that was found was a severed head and parts of three human legs. Had the terrorists’ plans of coinciding a blast at the airport with the attacks on the Taj and Oberoi hotels succeeded, the death toll of 26/11 would have been much bigger than it already is.
Sabina Sehgal Saikia, a senior journalist with the Times of India who was trapped on the sixth floor of the Taj Hotel, has died, her friends confirmed on Saturday.
The identity of another female victim identified Saturday, a Mexican Jew, has not been published yet.
The Foreign Ministry confirmed the deaths of eight Israelis in the Mumbai terror attacks which began Wednesday. Authorities announced the name of a fourth Israeli victim, 60-year-old Yohevet Orpaz, after her family identified her body on Saturday afternoon, Israel Radio reported. Orpaz was killed along with another eight people at the Chabad House. The Foreign Ministry said that seven of the nine bodies found in the building have been identified as Israelis. According to Israel’s ambassador to India, Mark Sofer, three Israelis had yet to be identified…At least one of the remaining two victims in the Chabad House is a woman and both are Israelis. Indian commandos were still combing the floors of Nariman House for other casualties.
The full scope of the horror and desperation of the terrorist attack on Mumbai began to come into focus on Saturday after Indian commandos finally took control of the last nest of resistance. Government officials said Saturday afternoon that the death toll had risen to 162 and was likely to rise again. They also said 283 people had been wounded. Most of the dead were apparently Indian citizens, but at least 18 foreigners were killed and 22 had been injured, said Vilasrao Deshmukh, the chief minister of Maharashtra State. At least five Americans were believed to have died in the attacks. Investigations into the identity and number of the attackers continued Saturday night. The city’s police commissioner suggested Saturday that 10 militants had caused the mayhem. “With confidence I can say that 10 terrorists came in,” said the commissioner, Hasan Gafoor. “We killed nine of them and one was captured alive.” His comments were confirmed by Mr. Deshmukh, although it remained unclear whether they might have been referring to 10 attackers coming in by sea to join accomplices who, according to unconfirmed local news reports, might have embedded themselves in Mumbai days before the attacks. A senior Mumbai police inspector, Nagappa R. Mali, identified the captured suspect as a 21-year-old Pakistani man, Ajmal Amir Kasab. Mr. Mali said the man had a fourth-grade education and worked as a laborer. Four other suspected terrorists were at the morgue at the JJ Hospital in Mumbai. Officials there put their ages between 20 and 25. All four were males.
Hours after Commandos ended the bloody three-day Mumbai siege fears are growing that the toll of 195 dead may rise including some Britons. Since the last three gunmen were killed at the Taj Mahal hotel this morning troops have been going door-to-door checking for casualties and setting off controlled explosions on bombs left by the terrorists. Ten coordinated attacks which began on Wednesday night have left at least 195 people dead and 295 injured. Elite National Security Guard commandos said they discovered 30 bodies in a single room after storming the Taj Mahal hotel at 7.30am.
Times of India:
Mumbai siege ends, combing op on at Taj
Qaida in partnership with Lashkar in India
Kasab killed Karkare, Salaskar and Kamte: Police