MUMBAI: Heavy gunfire erupted on Friday after NSG commandos were dropped by helicopter onto the roof of Nariman House in Mumbai, where militants NSG commando airdropped from chopper atop Nariman House in Mumbai. The death toll in a series of coordinated attacks by militants in Mumbai rose to 130, a senior police official said.At least 93 hostages, majority of them foreigners, rescued from Oberoi hotel. The group, some of whom were carrying luggage with Canadian flags on, were taken away in cars without speaking to reporters. The group included one man dressed in Chef's uniform and a small baby.Police said militants were still holed up as well at the Taj Mahal hotel and the nearby Oberoi-Trident hotel along with an unknown number of hostages. Earlier, three fresh explosions rocked Nariman House early on Friday as security forces battled hard through the night to end the siege of Taj and Trident luxury hotels by heavily-armed terrorists.As NSG commandos closed in on Nariman House, a Jewish residential complex in Colaba in south Mumbai, for a final assault, two explosions within a span of ten to 15 minutes slowed down their operation. A third explosion was heard at 4.47 am. "The operation to clean up the Nariman House is still going on," Director General of National Security Guard (NSG) J K Dutt told reporters adding, "it is just a matter of time and it will end soon". Dutt said the operations at Hotel Taj was by and large over with just one injured terrorist still holed-up in the building. "He has been injured and I think we will be able to mop up the operation there very quickly," he said.
BEIRUT: Thousands of people converged Saturday on central Beirut to mark the fourth anniversary of the assassination of Lebanese former premier Rafiq Hariri.Waving Lebanese flags and carrying pictures of the slain leader, men, women and children gathered under sunny skies in Martyr's Square where members of the parliamentary majority were to address the crowd. The rally comes as final preparations are underway in The Hague for the launch of the international tribunal set up to bring Hariri's killers to justice. It also comes as the country prepares for legislative elections in June that will pit Western-backed political parties against a Hezbollah-led alliance backed by Syria and Iran.Hariri died in a massive car bombing on February 14, 2005 that also killed 22 others. The assassination was widely blamed on then Lebanese power-broker Syria, which has denied any involvement. The attack on the Beirut seafront was one of the worst acts of political violence to rock Lebanon since t...
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