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.
BAGHDAD: Nearly 500 U.S. Army combat engineers who specialize in clearing roads of explosives started shifting to southern Afghanistan."We are probably going to be the beginning of the influx you are going to see to Afghanistan," Lt. Col. Kevin Landers, commander of the Fort Carson, Colo.-based 4th Engineer Battalion, said as crews packed crates and cleaned vehicles for the flight to Kandahar.Obama has ordered 17,000 more U.S. soldiers and Marines to Afghanistan to bolster the 38,000 American troops already battling the resurgent Taliban."We are going to take this footprint out of Iraq," said Landers, whose battalion received word of its reassignment last month just after taking command of clearing roads in Baghdad of bombs and debris.
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