恐怖袭击令印度商业之都陷入瘫痪

Terrorists Paralyze India's Business Capital　　　　
　　India's business capital was brought to a standstill as army and police continued to fight suspected Islamic militants in the heart of the usually bustling metropolis, marking a dramatic escalation of radical Islam's war against the world's largest democracy.
　　The coordinated, commando-style assault on Mumbai's luxury hotels, its historic train station, a Jewish center and other targets began Wednesday night, and marked the most audacious in a string of terror attacks to shake this majority-Hindu nation in recent years.
　　Friday morning, local time -- more than 35 hours after the initial attacks -- Indian commandos launched an all-out push to seize the Jewish center, where gunmen still held hostages. Helicopter-borne commados were dropped into the area. Intensive exchanges of gunfire could be heard.
　　Elsewhere in downtown Mumbai, Indian forces appeared to have made progress in flushing terrorists from other beseiged buildings. Earlier in the day, forces swept the famed Taj Mahal Palace & Tower hotel and the Oberoi Trident hotel for hostages, encountering sporadic resistance. But as of Friday morning, a small number of militants still remained in parts of both hotels.
　　About 120 people, including Mumbai's anti-terrorism chief and several foreigners, were reported killed in the attacks; more than 300 were injured.
　　With gun volleys still ringing out Friday morning and a major fire blazing in the Oberoi Trident, Indian officials were just beginning to piece together their investigation. Almost immediately, several blamed traditional arch-enemy Pakistan.
　　While not mentioning Pakistan by name, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh pledged to 'take up strongly with our neighbors that the use of their territory for launching attacks on us will not be tolerated.'
　　Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani have both condemned the bloodshed in Mumbai.
　　The scale and sophistication of the Mumbai attacks, as well as the choice of targets, however, appeared to point to a more insidious threat that the Indian government has been reluctant to acknowledge so far -- the potential involvement of extremists within the country's own Muslim community, which, at 150 million, is the world's third-largest after Indonesia and Pakistan. It is also one of India's most economically and politically disadvantaged minorities.
　　In a statement that couldn't be independently authenticated, a previously unknown group, the Deccan Mujahideen, claimed responsibility for the Mumbai operation, describing itself as hailing from the south Indian city of Hyderabad. Hyderabad was the world's largest Muslim-ruled monarchy until it was invaded and annexed by India in 1948.