2008 Mumbai attacks

The 2008 Mumbai attacks were a series of coordinated attacks that took place in the Indian city of Mumbai from 26 to 29 November 2008, carried out by ten Lashkar-e-Taiba militants on the orders of Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi. 166 people were killed and 600+ injured in the deadly attacks. Attacks took place at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus train station, the Taj Mahal Palace and Oberoi Trident hotels, and the Nariman House Jewish community center, with the hotels and Nariman House being the locations of hostage situations. Indian commandos stormed the buildings on 29 November, ending the crisis, but the attacks had already claimed 166 lives at that point. al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent was also suspected of being involved in the attacks.

Background[]

Lashkar-e-Taiba, the "Army of the Righteous", was formed in 1987 in Pakistan with al-Qaeda support. The group's stated goal was to create an Islamic state in South Asia and to liberate Jammu and Kashmir from India, and the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence agency provided assistance in training the attackers. A group of ten attackers - Ajmal Kasab, Abdul Rehman Bada, Abdul Rehaman Chota, Abu Ali, Fahad Ullah, Isamal Khan, Babar Imran, Abu Umar, Abu Sohrab, and Abu Soheb - received training in the mountainous area near Muzaffarabad, Pakistan, being indoctrinated with Islamist ideas before being trained in basic combat, survival training (supervised by former Pakistan Army personnel), marine navigation training, and commando tactics training. The attackers were trained in swimming and sailing in addition to high-end weapons and explosives, and they were given blueprints of the Taj Mahal Palace & Tower, Oberoi Trident, Nariman House, and Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus.

Attacks[]

Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus attack[]

Kasab terminus — Ajmal Kasab at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, filmed via CCTV

At 8:00 PM on 26 November 2008, the attackers came ashore at Colaba after riding on inflatable speedboats, and the police ignored a warning by Marathi fishermen of the suspicious attackers. At 9:30 PM, Ajmal Kasab and Isamal Khan began shooting up the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus with AK-47s, killing 58 people and wounding 104. The attackers killed eight responding police officers, and they headed toward Cama Hospital to kill patients as the outgunned police retreated. The hospital staff locked the patient wards, and the attackers instead killed Mumbai Anti-Terrorist Squad commander Hemant Karkare and three of his colleagues as they attempted to stop the terrorists. The two attackers drove the captured police vehicle for a while before stealing a passenger car, and they ran into a police roadblock. Khan was killed in the ensuing shootout, and Kasab was wounded and captured, the only attacker to be captured alive. He gave a harrowing narrative of the attackers' goals when he said that they were ordered to kill "until their last breath".

Leading up to the hotel attacks[]

Leopold Cafe attack — The damage at Leopold Cafe

That same evening, two attackers opened fire at the Leopold Cafe on the Colaba Causeway in South Mumbai, targeting foreigners and Indians. At least ten people were killed and many more injured in the deadly attack, the second target to be struck. The attackers also utilized time bombs to destroy two taxicabs, blowing up one at Wadi Bunder at 10:23 PM (killing three and injuring fifteen) and another at Via Parle at 10:40 PM (killing 2).

Taj Mahal Hotel and Oberoi Trident attacks[]

The attackers then moved to target the popular Taj Mahal Palace & Hotel and the Oberoi Trident hotel, and several explosions rocked the Taj Mahal. One exploded in the lobby, two in the elevators, and three in the restaurant; the Oberoi Trident was rocked by a single explosion. The attackers proceeded to take hostages at both hotels, and 200 people were rescued from the Taj Mahal Hotel through windows by firefighters. Bada Abdul Rehaman, Abu Ali, and Abu Soheb held hostages at the Taj Mahal, and many European politicians (including several UK Conservative Party members, a Social Democratic Party of Germany member, a Spanish European Parliament member, and an MP from Poland) hid in the hotel and escaped unharmed. The hostage situation lasted until 29 November, when both hotels were stormed by Indian commandos. At the Oberoi Trident, Abdul Rehaman Chota and Fahad Ullah killed 32 hostages before they were killed; the attackers at the two hotels were all killed.

Nariman House attack[]

The fourth major attack location was the Nariman House Jewish community center, where Abu Umar and Babar Imran took hostages. Police evacuated nearby buildings in preparation for a rescue attempt, and they wounded one of the attackers. A naval helicopter took an aerial survey as commandos from Delhi arrived to storm the building, and commandos fast-roped from helicopters as snipers provided cover for them. One commando and the two attackers were both killed, but six hostages were murdered before the attack ended.

Aftermath[]

The attack left approximately 166 dead and 600+ wounded, one of the worst terrorist attacks in Indian history. The high level of coordination seen in the attacks hinted that the Pakistani ISI was involved in the training of the attackers before the attacks, and the discipline of the terrorists worried many security analysts; the November 2015 Paris attacks would be compared to the Mumbai attacks due to their tactical similarities. Indian authorities discovered that the attacks had been planned for 2006, but the discovery of a weapons cache in Aurangabad led to the plan being postponed. Ajmal Kasab was hanged in Yerwada Jail in 2012 due to his status as the only surviving attacker, but not before he revealed several details of the attack in confessions to the police.