AP Video: Mumbai Under Siege

Seen on: YouTube

There has been widespread international condemnation of the series of shootings across the Indian city of Mumbai in which more than 100 people have been killed.

AlJazeera Video: Mumbai Terror Attacks

Seen on: YouTube

More than 100 people are dead after a series of attacks across Mumbai, India's financial capital. Parts of the city are still under siege after the attackers stormed luxury hotels, a popular restaurant, a crowded train station and a hospital.

Image Day - Taj Mahal Hotel

Fire engulfs a part of the Taj Mahal Hotel as firemen try to douse it in Mumbai, India. Teams of heavily armed gunmen stormed luxury hotels, a popular restaurant, hospitals and a crowded train station in co-ordinated attacks across India's financial capital, killing at least 78 people.

> Image by AP

AP Video: Mumbai Terror Attacks

Seen on: YouTube

Teams of heavily armed gunmen stormed luxury hotels, a popular restaurant and a crowded train station in coordinated attacks across India's financial capital Wednesday night, killing at least 78 people and taking Westerners hostage.

Links: Mumbai Terror Attacks

Related links on the appalling terror attacks in Mumbai:

• Twitter
  The death toll from the terrorists attack in Mumbai has risen to at least 87; 900 reported injured; attack still unfolding at locations.


• In pictures: Mumbai attacks
  Gunmen have launched co-ordinated attacks at several sites in the Indian city of Mumbai, killing scores. Police told people to stay inside.


• India: Terror attacks continue in Mumbai
  In what appears to be a surreal sense of reality, television channels are airing footage from various places in Southern Mumbai.


• Scores killed in Mumbai attacks
  "The terrorists have used automatic weapons and in some places grenades have been lobbed. The encounters are still going on and we are trying to overpower them," A.N. Roy, a senior police officer, said.


• Mumbai gunmen kill 80, Western hostages taken
  "The terrorists are throwing grenades at us from the rooftop of the Taj and trying to stop us," Ashok Patil, a police inspector told Reuters.

Latest: Mumbai Terror Attacks

Shivnath Thukral reports for NDTV that fire is still being exchanged between the security forces and terrorists inside the historic Taj Hotel.

According to NDTV reports, three terrorists have been killed, while a number of gunmen remain at large inside the hotel compounds. Indian security forces are still struggling to bring the situation in control and authorities are advising people to stay away from the scene of the attacks, which include prominent city locations like the Trident Hotel.

Times Video: Mumbai Terror Strikes

Seen on: YouTube

Gunmen have carried out a series of co-ordinated attacks across the Indian city of Mumbai (Bombay), killing at least 80 people and injuring 200.

Bangladesh, the next Afghanistan?

Bangladesh has a number of organized & lavishly funded fundamentalist militias and a government that yields to their pressure on all matters.

Understandably, there has been growing concern over the possibility of Bangladesh becoming a country like Afghanistan under Taleban rule.

Addressing a press-conference in Dhaka on 5th September 2004, Joseph Cofer Black, the US State Department's coordinator for counter-terrorism, who was visiting the country in wake of the attack on Awami League's rally on 21 August, affirmed that USA was looking at Bangladesh's role as a terrorist platform.

Many would, however, scoff at the suggestion that a shift might be under-way from Afghanistan to Bangladesh, arguing that the situation in Bangladesh today is very different from Afghanistan in 1994 when the Taleban emerged.

Bangladesh is a far more developed country than Afghanistan. It has a vocal and assertive civil society supported by an active and secular intelligentsia. More important, it is a Muslim country with a significant degree of religious tolerance, where women play important roles in the country's social and economic lives.

Related Link > Radicalism in Bangladesh

Via Bangladesh-Blogger

Image Day - Kashmiri Rights

An elderly activist attends a protest rally in Srinagar, held to protest against alleged human-rights violations by Indian troops in Kashmir. Amnesty-International has urged India to launch an urgent-investigation into nearly 1,000 unmarked graves found in the revolt-hit region of Kashmir.

> Getty Images

Image Day - Jammu & Kashmir

An Indian security-personnel stands guard on a house-boat in Srinagar, India, Thursday, Jan. 24, 2008. Security has been beefed up in the insurgency-hit state of Jammu and Kashmir for the 59th Republic-Day celebration on Jan. 26.

> AP-Image

Brown in India

Britain and India should step up cooperation in the fight against terrorism and work together to isolate militants, prime-minister Gordon-Brown said on Sunday.

Brown, on his first visit to India as prime minister, said he would like to see India join an international body that fights money laundering and terrorist financing, the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force.

"What I would like to see is greater contact between our two countries in winning the battle of hearts and minds, isolating extremist ideologies who try to poison young people," Brown told a news conference.

Aid-Pledge
Brown arrived bearing promises of hundreds of millions of dollars of development aid to combat poverty in India, where 400 million people live on less than $1 a day despite the country's rapid economic-growth.

Britain said that over the next three years it will give India £825 million in development aid, with more than half spent on health and education.

Via Box-UK

Taleban storm luxury-hotel in Kabul

Taleban militants stormed Kabul's leading luxury-hotel last night, killing seven people in a significant escalation of insurgent tactics against foreign civilians in Afghanistan.

UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, said Norway's foreign minister, Støre, was the target of the assault, where the Norwegian embassy was holding a meeting.

A Taleban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, claimed responsibility shortly after the attack.

Via Guardian-Unlimited/AFP

Image Day - Rubbing Hands

Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf (R) shakes hands with his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai during a joint news conference in Islamabad, Dec 26.

The leaders vowed to boost intelligence-cooperation to meet the menace of terrorism that was destroying both countries, Musharraf said.

> Reuters Pictures

News Video: Pakistan mosque blast

Seen on: YouTube

A suicide attacker detonated a powerful bomb inside a crowded mosque in northwestern Pakistan on Friday, killing at least 50 people and injuring 80.

An attack inside a mosque during Eid al-Adha, one of the most important Muslim holidays, represents an escalation of violence by militants who have carried out an unprecedented number of suicide bombings this year.

The holiday, which means "Festival of Sacrifice," marks the end of the Hajj and celebrates Ibrahim's willingness to sacrifice his son.

Musharraf's desperate move

The Times correspondent in Pakistan says a state of emergency will worsen, rather than improve Musharraf's position.

The Government argues that a state of emergency can be imposed when Pakistan is “threatened by war or external aggression, or by internal disturbance beyond”.

> Musharraf set to declare state of emergency