India says Mumbai gunmen trained in Pakistan

MUMBAI (Reuters) - Indian investigators said on Monday the militants who attacked Mumbai underwent months of commando training in Pakistan, raising tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbours as recriminations mounted in India.

The fallout prompted a second top politician from the ruling Congress party to resign, amid growing fury at intelligence lapses many Indians believe let 10 Islamist gunmen kill 183 people and besiege India's financial capital for three days.

The attacks, which struck Mumbai's two best-known luxury hotels and other landmarks in the city of 18 million, are a major setback for improving ties between India and Pakistan.

The White House said U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would visit India on Wednesday, underscoring the seriousness with which Washington viewed the attacks.

"I don't want to jump to any conclusions myself on this, but I do think that this is a time for complete, absolute, total transparency and cooperation and that is what we expect (from Pakistan)," Rice told reporters travelling with her to London.

She downplayed the threat of conflict between two countries, who almost came to war in 2002 after an earlier attack on India's parliament which also was blamed on Pakistani militants.

"This is a different relationship than it was a number of years ago. Obviously they share a common enemy because extremists in any form are a threat to the Pakistanis as well as the Indians," Rice said.

PAKISTAN TRAINING

Two senior investigators told Reuters on condition of anonymity that evidence from the interrogation of Azam Amir Kasav, the only gunmen of the 10 not killed by commandos, clearly showed that Pakistani militants had a hand in the attack.

The clean-shaven, 21-year-old with fluent English was photographed during the attack wearing a black t-shirt emblazoned with the Versace logo. He has said his team took orders from "their command in Pakistan," police officials said.

The training was organised by the Lashkar-e-Taiba militant group, and conducted by a former member of the Pakistani army, a police officer close to the interrogation told Reuters on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak.

"They underwent training in several phases, which included training in handling weapons, bomb making, survival strategies, survival in a marine environment and even dietary habits," another senior officer told Reuters.

The Pakistani-based Lashkar-e-Taiba made its name fighting Indian rule in Kashmir but was also blamed for an attack on the Indian parliament in 2001 that brought the nuclear-armed neighbours close to war the next year.

Lashkar had had close links to Pakistan's military spy agency in the past, security experts say, although the government in Islamabad insists it too is fighting the group and other Islamist militants based on its soil.

"NO ONE ACTED"

New Delhi has not accused Islamabad's civilian government of involvement but has expressed deep frustration that its neighbour has been unable or unwilling to prevent militants using its soil to attack Indian cities.

Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari has appealed to India not to punish his country for last week's attacks, saying militants could precipitate a war, the Financial Times reported on Monday.

"Even if the militants are linked to Lashkar-e-Taiba, who do you think we are fighting?" Zardari told the newspaper.

Officials in Islamabad have warned any escalation would force it to divert troops to the Indian border and away from a U.S.-led anti-militant campaign on the Afghan frontier.

"It's part of the usual blackmail of the United States that Pakistan does to take more interest in India-Pakistan issues," said B. Raman, a former head of Indian intelligence agency RAW.

New Delhi said on Sunday it was raising security to a "war level" and had no doubt of a Pakistani link.

In an apparent attempt to deflect the blame, intelligence agencies told TV channels they had repeatedly warned of an imminent attack on Mumbai by sea. But police and coastguard officials denied receiving any actionable intelligence.

As anger mounted, the chief minister of Maharashtra state, of which Mumbai is the capital, offered to resign. Vilasrao Deshmukh, a member of the ruling Congress party, could follow his deputy, state home minister R. R. Patil, out the door.

Indian Home Minister Shivraj Patil also stepped down on Sunday, as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said he would overhaul and boost the nation's counter-terrorism capabilities.

There have been a series of major bomb attacks on Indian cities this year and threats that more would follow, which has given the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party fodder to blast the ruling party in the runup to elections due by May.

The leader of Maharashtra's main fishermen's union says he had tipped off the government four months ago about militants using the sea to land RDX explosives in Mumbai.

"No one acted upon our information," Damodar Tandel said.

A huge consignment of explosives and guns brought ashore with the help of criminal gangs in Mumbai in 1993 was used to set off a string of bombs in the city that killed 257 people.

Mumbai residents returned to schools and offices on Monday for the first time since the attacks.

India's main share index rose as much as 2.6 percent helped by the reshuffle of key posts, before reversing the gains as European markets fell.

(Reporting by New Delhi, Mumbai and Islamabad bureaux, and Sue Pleming in London; Writing by Bryson Hull; Editing by Simon Denyer and Paul Tait)