Commandos mop up last of Mumbai militants

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By Rina Chandran and Madhu Soman

MUMBAI (Reuters) - Indian commandos killed the last Islamist gunmen holed up at Mumbai's Taj Mahal hotel on Saturday, ending a three-day battle at landmarks across India's financial capital that killed at least 155 people.

"Taj is under our control," Mumbai police chief Hasan Gafoor told Reuters, shortly after the building was raked by heavy gunfire as flames leapt from windows.

At least three militants and one trooper were killed after a running gunbattle through a maze of corridors, rooms and halls, the country's commando chief, Jyoti Krishna Dutt, told a news conference.

The gunmen had set parts of the hotel ablaze as they played cat and mouse with scores of India's best-trained commandos, known as the Black Cats.

Sniffer dogs were taken to the iconic 105-year-old hotel and ambulances arrived. Some commandos did a final sweep of the rooms, while others boarded buses to pull out, looking exhausted.

Ratan Tata, the chairman of the Tata Group of companies which owns the hotel, arrived at the premises later in the morning. He may be shocked by what he finds when he is finally let inside.

"The lobby is an absolute mess," said Manish Mundra, a volunteer who was bringing food to security forces and had been inside the hotel. "The furniture is broken, there is water everywhere they are never going to be able to reuse any of that stuff."

Black streaks of soot stained the grey bricks, white balconies and red-tiled roofs of the hotel's facade. Two of its corner stained-glass windows were broken.

The Taj Mahal was the last battleground after three days of intense fighting in various parts of the city of 18 million.

Several newspapers said some of the militants had checked into the Taj hotel some days or weeks before the attacks, while the Times of India said they had rented an apartment in the city a few months ago pretending to be students.

Friday, an army general said the gunmen appeared to be "very, very familiar" with the layout of the hotel, giving them a crucial advantage over his men. They were also well trained.

"At times we found them matching us in combat and movement," one commando told the Hindustan Times. "They were either army regulars or have done a long stint of commando training."

DEATH TOLL

Mumbai police inspector Ashok Patil told Reuters at least 155 people had been killed and "we are still counting" as bodies were collected from the luxury Taj and nearby Trident-Oberoi hotels, scene of another siege that ended on Friday.

India blamed the strike on "elements" from Pakistan, raising tensions between the nuclear-armed rivals. Pakistan said the two countries faced a common enemy and it would send a representative of its spy agency to share intelligence.

The militants' action has struck at the heart of a city that is the engine room of an economic boom that has made India a favourite emerging market.

It is also home to the "Bollywood" film industry, the epitome of glamour in a country still blighted by poverty.

An Indian state minister said one of the militants arrested was a Pakistani national and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh warned of "a cost" if India's neighbours did not take action to stop their territory being used to launch attacks.

But Pakistan's Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi struck a conciliatory note and promised full cooperation.

"Whoever has done this is neither your friend nor our friend," he told reporters in New Delhi. "We are not responsible for this, nor is it in our interest to get involved in something like this."

The attacks were carried out by at least a dozen young men armed with rifles and grenades, some of whom arrived by sea, who fanned out across Mumbai Wednesday night to attack sites popular with tourists and business executives.

Authorities said 18 foreigners were among the dead. At least 283 people were wounded.

Three Germans, five Americans, one Australian, a Briton, one Canadian, two French, an Israeli, an Italian, a Japanese, a Singaporean and a Thai, were among the dead, according to various governments.

(Reporting by New Delhi, Mumbai and Islamabad bureaux; Writing by Simon Denyer; Editing by Alistair Scrutton and Valerie Lee)

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