Mumbai beset by skirmishes, standoffs

MUMBAI, India (CNN) -- The Mumbai gunmen who killed more than 120 people and took scores of hostages fired at people "with no remorse" and "obviously had to be trained somewhere," a member of the Indian navy's commando unit said Friday.

An unidentified guest gives a thumb's up sign Friday inside a bus after being rescued from the Oberoi Trident hotel complex.
As the Indian forces continued to battle the remaining attackers, the commando said they knew the layout of the hotels -- the Oberoi and Taj Mahal -- well enough to "vanish" after confronting security forces.
The commando, his identity concealed behind sunglasses and a scarf, spoke Friday afternoon to reporters outside the Taj -- one of three locations where gunmen continued their tense standoff more than 40 hours after launching a series of deadly attacks.
"Not everybody can fire the AK series of weapons, not everybody can throw a grenade like that," the commando said. "It is obvious that they were trained somewhere." Minutes after he spoke, fresh firing broke out at the Taj, sending reporters and onlookers ducking for cover.
Elsewhere, in a city already on edge, false rumors of shots fired at a railway station and a nearby hospital sent panicked people scrambling while police with guns converged en masse.
Meanwhile, sharpshooters kept up a steady stream of fire at the building housing the Chabad House, where several Jewish people are believed to be held hostage.
Hours earlier, a shell-shocked city awoke to television images of Indian soldiers rappelling down ropes from military choppers on to the roofs of Chabad House.
Authorities said the death toll from the coordinated attacks carried out on at least seven sites Wednesday night was 125, including at least six foreigners and 14 police officers, with 327 people wounded.
At the Taj and Oberoi hotels police -- despite claiming the standoffs were in their last stages -- could not definitively say how many gunmen or guests remained inside.
Army Lt. Gen. N. Thamburaj said at least one gunman -- possibly more -- could still be inside the Taj, holding two or more hostages. All remaining hostages and guests would be rescued by midday, he said.
"It is possible that some of the hotel guests have locked themselves in and for their own security and safety -- even though we have identified ourselves -- they are not opening the doors."
Outside the Oberoi hotel, onlookers cheered as about 90 guests, including at least one infant, were escorted out from the hotel premises and quickly herded into waiting vans. Many of them appeared to be foreigners.
But the euphoria was short-lived as a hotel spokesman clarified that the evacuees were guests at the Trident hotel, which is connected to the Oberoi by a common corridor.
The Italian foreign ministry said among the group were five of seven Italians who had been held hostage, including the wife of the hotel's Italian chef and her infant. Also in the group were several flight attendants working for Lufthansa and Air France, the foreign ministry said.
Two dozen soldiers landed on the rooftop of the Chabad House building Friday morning, with gunfire and at least 10 explosions heard soon after.
Police did not have a clear picture of how many gunmen remained or how many hostages they were holding inside the building, also known as the Nariman House. It is the Mumbai headquarters of the Chabad, an Hasidic Jewish movement.
Rabbi Gavriel Noach Holtzberg, the city's envoy for the Chabad community, and his wife were believed inside. A cook at the center, who had barricaded herself in a room, grabbed the couple's 2-year-old son and escaped with another person, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported.
In a nationally televised address on Thursday, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said the attackers were foreigners but did not specify where they were from.
The identity of the attackers remains a mystery. Police say the attackers came by boats to the waterfront near the Gateway of India monument and the two hotels.
Interpol said it would send a delegation to India.
"When such coordinated and planned terrorist attacks are carried out against international targets and when a country's head of government states there are suspected 'external linkages', the police in the country concerned require international assistance," said Interpol's Secretary