Coordinated Carnage in Mumbai; 80 Dead (Updated)

Something horrible is happening in Mumbai. 80 people are dead and 250 injured in a coordinated series of attacks on luxury hotels, train stations, and tourist attractions in India's financial capital. At least seven sites were struck, the Times of India reports. And the death toll could easily climb much higher. 60 lifeless bodies and over 200 injured people were brought to a single hospital, according to DNA Mumbai.

"A little-known group, the Deccan Mujahideen, has claimed responsibility," the AP reports. The strikes "come after a series of blasts attributed to Islamist terrorists over the summer and autumn in other cities around India," the Wall Street Journal notes.

Terrorists "armed with AK-47 rifles and grenades" stormed the "passenger hall" of Mumbai's Chhatrapathi
Shivaji Terminus (CST) train station. They "and opened fire and threw grenades," according to Mumbai General Railway Police Commissioner A. K. Sharma. 30 people were injured.

"Firing was also reported at Cama Hospital in south Mumbai, police said, adding that a blast was reported in a taxi under a flyover in suburban
Vile Parle," the paper says. "Three persons were killed in a bomb explosion in a taxi on Mazegaon dockyard road and an equal number were gunned down at [the] Taj Hotel."

"Bellboys could be seen rushing the injured out on luggage trolleys," according to DNA Mumbai. The victims "included three senior police officers, including the head of [the state's] anti-terror squad," the *Wall Street Journal *reports.

More bloodshed could come from the Taj attack. The gun-toting terrorists who hit the landmark hotel also took 15 people, half of them foreigners, hostage on the roof of the luxury Taj Hotel, an escaped hostage tells the Times of India. The attackers, men in their early 20's, honed in on "anyone with British or American passports," an eyewitness said.

Survivors of the attack on the Oberoi hotel told a similar story. A British restaurant-goer tells Sky News television that "the attackers were singling out Britons and Americans."

Alex Chamberlain said a gunman, a young man of 22 or 23, ushered 30
or 40 people from the restaurant into a stairway and ordered everyone to put up their hands.

"They were talking about British and Americans specifically. There was an Italian guy, who, you know, they said: 'Where are you from?" and he said he's from Italy and they said 'fine' and they left him alone.
And I thought: 'Fine, they're going to shoot me if they ask me anything - and thank God they didn't," he said.

[Photo: Reuters]