Indian Forces Target Final Site of Attacks

Indian policemen outside the Taj Mahal hotel in Mumbai, India, on Friday.

MUMBAI, India — Indian commandos worked to smother the last nest of terrorist resistance early on Saturday morning. It was the third day of a siege that has shaken India, raised tensions with neighboring Pakistan and prompted searing questions about the failure of the authorities to anticipate the tragedy or to react swiftly enough as it unfolded.

All told, after attackers were cleared from one hotel and a Jewish center on Friday, more than 150 people had died in the coordinated assaults. Most of the dead were apparently Indian citizens, but at least 22 foreigners were killed. As myriad accounts emerged of the carnage, a transcontinental vigil over the fate of a rabbi from Brooklyn and his wife, who ran the Jewish center, ended in a dramatic commando raid and, finally, with the news of the couple’s deaths.

The main success of the day for the authorities came at the Oberoi hotel, where 30 bodies were found. But the authorities said that two gunmen had been killed and 93 foreigners — some of them wearing Air France and Lufthansa uniforms — had been rescued. Exhausted survivors offered harrowing accounts of their ordeal, trapped on the upper floors of the high-rise hotel while gunmen prowled below. The national security guard said it recovered two AK-47s, a 9-millimeter pistol and some grenades.

India’s foreign minister openly blamed “elements in Pakistan” for the attacks. American intelligence and counterterrorism officials said Friday that there was mounting evidence that a Pakistani militant group — Lashkar-e-Taiba, which has long been involved in the conflict with India over the disputed territory of Kashmir — was responsible.

The Indian authorities were beginning to face sharp questions about why operations to flush out a handful of assailants at the Jewish center and a second hotel, the Taj Mahal Palace & Tower, had not moved more rapidly.

And many other basic questions remained for a crisis that unfolded so publicly, on televisions, Web sites and Twitter feeds across the world. Who were the attackers? The police tally was at least eight killed and one captured alive, but could so few militants have caused such mayhem? How had they managed to plan and coordinate such an operation and then fight off highly trained commandos for so long?

The army’s operation at the Taj was entering its “final phase” late on Friday, according to the Indian military. Commandos were battling at least one terrorist who was moving between two floors of the hotel, including an area that had been a dance floor for weddings and other parties. The army said two other gunmen had been killed there overnight on Thursday.

Indian commandos said the attackers at the hotels were well trained, with one carrying a backpack packed with hundreds of rounds of ammunition, and they seemed to know the buildings’ layout better than the security forces, indicating a high degree of preparation and sophistication. Some were seen arriving by boat; others may have been guests at the hotels for days.

The leader of a commando unit involved in a gun battle on Thursday morning inside the Taj said during a news conference on Friday that he had seen a dozen dead bodies in one of the rooms.

His team found a gunman’s backpack, which contained dried fruit, 400 rounds of AK-47 ammunition, four grenades, Indian and American money, and seven credit cards from some of the world’s leading banks, he said. The pack also had a national identity card from the island of Mauritius, off Africa’s southeastern coast.

The attackers were “very, very familiar with the layout of the hotel,” said the commander, who disguised his face with a scarf and tinted glasses to hide his identity. He said the militants, who appeared to be under 30 years old, were “determined” and “remorseless.”

As the State Department reported that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had called President-elect Barack Obama twice to brief him on the attacks, American intelligence and counterterrorism officials said Friday there was mounting evidence pointing to the involvement of Lashkar, or possibly another Pakistani group focused on Kashmir, Jaish-e-Muhammad.

The American officials cautioned that they had reached no conclusions about who was responsible for the attacks, or how they were planned and carried out. An F.B.I. team was being sent to Mumbai to assist with the forensic investigation. In a statement, President Bush said he was saddened by the deaths.

At the Jewish center, Nariman House, commandos slid down ropes from a hovering Army helicopter, landed on the roof and stormed the building, home to the Hasidic Jewish group Chabad-Lubavitch.

The bodies of at least five people were found inside, including the slain rabbi, Gavriel Holtzberg, who held dual American and Israeli citizenship, and his wife, Rivka, an Israeli citizen. Another was that of Rabbi Leibish Teitelbaum, a Brooklyn native who moved to Jerusalem several years ago, according to a statement by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. Israeli radio reported that a sixth body had been found at the center as well.

The dead at the Oberoi included a 58-year-old man and his 13-year-old daughter, members of a spiritual community visiting from Virginia, who were shot in the lobby. Two more Americans and two Canadians, traveling as part of the same group, were wounded.

As the day progressed, the Indian authorities kept up a steady stream of accusations aimed at Pakistan, raising fears of heightening tensions between the countries, nuclear-armed powers that have fought wars in the past.

R.R. Patil, the home affairs minister of Maharashtra State, where Mumbai issituated, said the assailant who had been captured alive was a Pakistani citizen. The Indian foreign minister, Pranab Mukherjee, said early evidence explicitly pointed to Pakistan’s involvement. “Preliminary evidence, prima facie evidence, indicates elements with links to Pakistan are involved,” he told reporters in New Delhi.

In London, officials said they were unable to confirm reports in a British newspaper that some of the attackers had British passports. Holding British passports is relatively common among people with ties to former colonies.

Pakistan seemed anxious to defuse the mounting crisis in relations. Discussions about sending a representative of the country’s powerful Inter-Services Intelligence Agency to India were under way. Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said India and Pakistan should join hands to defeat a common enemy, and urged New Delhi not to play politics over the attacks in Mumbai, Reuters reported.

“Do not bring politics into this issue,” he told reporters in the Indian town of Ajmer during a four-day visit to India. “This is a collective issue. We are facing a common enemy and we should join hands to defeat the enemy.”

President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan called Mr. Singh to say he was “appalled and shocked” by the attacks, Reuters reported. “Nonstate actors wanted to force upon the governments their own agenda, but they must not be allowed to succeed,” he said.

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