Mumbai Attacks

This post is not related to technology or web (unlike most of the other posts). The news story may disturb you.


(Content taken from Alan taylor's Blog; Photographers/journalists mentioned below every photograph.)


Late Wednesday night, Mumbai, India found itself the target of a ferocious terrorist attack. According to reports, upwards of 60 young men entered Mumbai in small inflatable boats on Wednesday night, carrying bags filled with weapons and ammunition, and spread out to nine locations to begin their attacks. Lobbing grenades and firing their weapons, they entered hotels, a railway station and several other buildings, killing scores and wounding even more. As of this moment, the identity of the attackers has yet to be definitively determined, though there are reports indicating some of the gunmen were Pakistani - at least nine of them have been killed, nine more arrested. As of this writing, there were a reported 151 people killed from 11 different countries - though nearly 100 were Indian. More than 300 injuries have also been reported - those numbers may yet rise as several hostage situations still exist in the city.




A reporter talks on her phone as smoke is seen coming from Taj Hotel in Mumbai November 27, 2008. Large plumes of smoke were seen rising from the top of the landmark Taj Hotel in Mumbai on Thursday and heavy firing could be heard, a Reuters witness said. (REUTERS/Arko Datta)





A man carries a victim of a gun attack away from the scene of an earlier attack at the Chatrapati Shivaji Terminus in Mumbai, India, Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2008. (AP Photo/Rajanish Kakade)





Fire engulfs the top floor of the Taj Mahal hotel, site of one of the shootouts with terrorists in Mumbai on late November 26, 2008. (LORENZO TUGNOLI/AFP/Getty Images)





Employees and guests of the Taj Mahal hotel, site of one of the shootouts with terrorists, are recued by firefighters as fire engulfs the top floor on late November 26, 2008. (LORENZO TUGNOLI/AFP/Getty Images)





The body of a terrorist attack victim is brought in an ambulance to the St. Georges Hospital in Mumbai, India, Thursday, Nov. 27, 2008. Dozens of people were still trapped or held captive Thursday. (AP Photo/Gurinder Osan)





Firefighters try to douse a fire at the Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai November 27, 2008. Indian commandos freed hostages from Mumbai's Taj Mahal hotel on Thursday but battled on with gun-toting Islamist militants. (REUTERS/Punit Paranjpe)





An Indian commando runs into Taj Hotel prior to a gun battle in Mumbai November 28, 2008. A chief of an Indian commando unit flushing out militants at the hotel said on Friday that he saw 12 to 15 bodies in one room. (REUTERS/Arko Datta)





Italian chef Emanuele Lattanzi carrying his daughter walks out after being rescued from Oberoi Trident Hotel where suspected militants are holed up in Mumbai, India, Friday, Nov. 28, 2008. (AP Photo)





An Indian paramilitary soldier lies on ground as he looks toward the Taj Mahal Hotel where suspected militants are holed up during an assault in Mumbai, India, Friday, Nov. 28, 2008. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)





A member of the anti-terrorist squad takes a position during an engagement with suspected militants at the Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai, India, Friday, Nov. 28, 2008. (AP Photo/Rajanish Kakade)





People read a newspaper carrying reports of the shootings in Mumbai, in the northeastern Indian city of Siliguri November 28, 2008. Indian commandos took control of Mumbai's Trident-Oberoi hotel on Friday, but battles raged on with militants who were still holed up in another luxury hotel and a Jewish centre with about half a dozen foreign hostages. (REUTERS/Rupak De Chowdhuri)





A National Security Guard commando rests during a lull in action after firing at suspected militants holed up at Nariman House in Colaba, Mumbai, India, Friday, Nov. 28, 2008. Commandos ended a siege of the luxury Oberoi Trident Hotel on Friday while other forces rappelled from helicopters to storm a besieged Jewish center, two days after a chain of militant attacks across India's financial center left people dead and the city in panic. (AP Photo/Saurabh Das)





A National Security Guard commando fires at suspected militants believed to be hiding in Nariman House, in Mumbai November 28, 2008. (REUTERS/Peter Keep)





A National Security Guard commando is seen after securing a floor during an operation against terrorists holed up at Nariman House, the headquarters of the ultra-orthodox Jewish outreach group Chabad Lubavitch, in Colaba in Mumbai, India, Friday, Nov. 28, 2008. (AP Photo/Saurabh Das)





A resident takes cover for possible return fire as National Security Guard commandoes fire at suspected militants holed up at Nariman House in Colaba, Mumbai, India, Friday, Nov. 28, 2008. (AP Photo/Saurabh Das)





Indian commandos are airdropped in Nariman House, where the armed militants are believed to be holed up in Mumbai November 28, 2008. (REUTERS/Stringer)





A National Security Guard (NSG) commando aims towards a window after an explosion on the fourth floor of the Nariman House where suspected militants are hiding, in Mumbai November 28, 2008. (REUTERS/Punit Paranjpe)





The media focus their attention on the beseiged Taj Mahal Palace Hotel on November 27, 2008 in Mumbai, India. (Ritam Banerjee/Getty Images)





Armed personnel hold handguns as they secure the area outside the Taj Palace hotel in Mumbai, India, Thursday, Nov. 27, 2008. (AP Photo/Gautam Singh)





Schoolchildren hold candles during a vigil held in memory of the victims of Wednesday's shootings in Mumbai, in the western Indian city of Ahmedabad November 27, 2008. Elite Indian commandos fought room to room battles with Islamist militants inside two luxury hotels to save scores of people trapped or taken hostage, as the country's prime minister blamed neighbouring countries. (REUTERS/Amit Dave)





The windows on the first floor of the Taj Mahal hotel shatter after the use of a grenade launcher in Mumbai, India, Friday, Nov. 28, 2008. Explosions and gunfire continued intermittently at the Taj Mahal hotel Friday afternoon, two days after a chain of militant attacks across India's financial center left people dead and the city in panic. (AP Photo/Rajanish Kakade)





Policemen take position outside "Nariman Bhavan", where armed militants are believed to be holed up in Mumbai November 27, 2008. (REUTERS/Arko Datta)





Sharda Janardhan Chitikar, left, is consoled by a relative as she grieves the death of her two children in a terrorist attack while she waits for their bodies outside St. Georges Hospital in Mumbai, India, Thursday, Nov. 27, 2008. (AP Photo/Gurinder Osan)





A woman (right), recently evacuated from Mumbai following the attacks, hugs her mother upon her arrival on November 28, 2008 at the military airport of Torrejon, near Madrid. Sixty Spanish citizens who were in Mumbai when the attacks erupted in the Indian city were expected back in Madrid Friday on a Spanish air force plane. (PEDRO ARMESTRE/AFP/Getty Images)




More links and information:

Indian Forces Battle Pockets of Militants - NYTimes.com 11/28

Virginia man, daughter among Mumbai terror victims - Boston.com 11/28

Mumbai Attack Sites - NYTimes.com graphic

November 2008 Mumbai attacks - up-to-date current event Wikipedia entry

Looks like a Gaming Revolution

I wouldn't say a thing.. A video is worth a thousand words!



This is a latest game from EA - Mirror's Edge.

Story Trailers:

So, what do you say?

Conflict in Congo.. refugees on the move

This post is not related to technology or web (unlike most of the other posts). The violent content in some photographs or the news story itself, might disturb you.

(Content from Alan taylor's Blog; Photographers mentioned below every photograph)

In the eastern mountains of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo), a rebel army led by Laurent Nkunda - a former General of the DR Congo armed forces - recently launched attacks and captured territory after a peace treaty had failed with the government. Nkunda's forces are Tutsi rebels, fighting against the DR Congo government forces and U.N. peacekeeeping forces. The U.N. has over 17,000 troops in the Congo right now, but they are widely dispersed, and have been unable to fully protect civilians or even defend their own bases. Nkunda's rebels forced government soldiers to retreat from intense battles up to the edges of the provincial capital of Goma. The biggest losers in this conflict are the hundreds of thousands of civilians caught in the middle - forced to relocate repeatedly, many victims of looting, rape and murder by both advancing rebels and some government soldiers - looking to thinly-spread U.N. forces for help. The humanitarian crisis and threat of further regional destabilization, has made this conflict a top U.N. priority recently.

A Congolese woman cries as she marches with thousands of Congolese people toward the provincial capital of Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo, on October 29, 2008. Refugees began arriving shortly after violence started between Forces loyal to renegade Laurent Nkunda and the Congolese army. (WALTER ASTRADA/AFP/Getty Images)



Internally Displaced People (IDPs) carry their belongings on a road leading away from the north-east Congolese town of Goma in the vicinity of the Nyirangong volcano on November 01, 2008. Some of the thousands of refugees who had fled the violence in clashes between the forces of rebel General Laurent Nkunda and the DR Congo armed forces started making their way back to displaced camps they have lived in for years and some others headed home. The population living in this area have been repeatedly forced to move from one place to the other as an armed conflict has endured in the region for years. (ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP/Getty Images)



Congolese tanks and thousands of displaced people stream into Goma in eastern Congo, Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2008. Thousands of refugees started streaming into the eastern provincial capital of Goma in the afternoon, impeded by army tanks, trucks and jeeps pulling back from the battle front. (AP Photo/Karel Prinsloo)



People throw stones at U.N. peacekeepers patrolling on a road in Kibati, about 25 km (16 miles) north of the provincial capital of Goma, DR Congo on October 28, 2008. U.N. peacekeepers prepared to evacuate around 50 foreign aid workers from a town in violence-ravaged eastern Congo on Tuesday with Tutsi rebels advancing towards it, officials said. (REUTERS/Stringer)



A file photo taken on October 13, 2007 shows dissident general Laurent Nkunda taking a call at his mountain base in Kachanga, eastern Congo. Nkunda had called on all Congolese people to "stand up" to the national government, in a BBC radio interview aired on October 2, 2008. (AFP PHOTO / LIONEL HEALING)



Soldiers of the Congolese army pass by a helmet and rest of used munition at Rumangabo base which was overrun by Forces loyal to renegade Laurent Nkunda, about 50 kilometers (30 miles) north of the provincial capital of Goma after an intense battle, on October 11, 2008. The rebel forces withdrew from the army base. Democratic Republic of Congo officials this week alleged that Rwandan troops had aided Nkunda's forces to capture Rumangabo, and accused Kigali of planning to attack the provincial capital of Goma. Rwandan officials denied the charges. Renewed fighting broke out August 28 with government troops and Nkunda's CNDP violating a ceasefire reached under the Goma peace accord in January. (WALTER ASTRADA/AFP/Getty Images)



A soldier of the Congolese army stands inside a tent riddled with bullet holes after an intense battle at Rumangabo base, about 50 kilometers (30 miles) north of the provincial capital of Goma, DR Congo on October 11, 2008. (WALTER ASTRADA/AFP/Getty Images)



The body of one of the rebels killed in a fight with the Congolese army lies dead in the Mulindi Mountains, near Tongo, 65 kilometers northwest of the provincial capital of Goma, DR Congo, on October 14, 2008. The Democratic Republic of Congo's east is being bled dry as Kinshasa and Rwanda refuse to bury the hatchet and marauding militias plunder its bountiful mineral wealth, analysts recently said. (WALTER ASTRADA/AFP/Getty Images)



A tank of the Congolese army fires over positions of forces loyal to rebel leader Laurent Nkunda in the Mulindi Mountains in Tongo, 65 kilometers north west of the provincial capital of Goma, on October 14, 2008. (WALTER ASTRADA/AFP/Getty Images)



A Congolese woman carrying her belongings walks down a road near the Rumangabo base recently captured by rebels loyal to renegade Laurent Nkunda on October 11, 2008. The rebel forces later withdrew from the army base. (WALTER ASTRADA/AFP/Getty Images)



On October 17, 2008, in a village near Rumango base, fighters belonging to the National Congress for People's Defence (CNDP), under the direction of renegade General Laurent Nkunda, displayed ammunition used in a piece of artillery they took from the Congolese Armed Forces (FARDC) in an attack on Rumangabo just north of the Eastern Congolese town of Goma last week. A cease fire between government forces and rebels from General Laurent Nkunda broke down on August 28, 2008 when rebel forces clashed with Congolese army troops. (ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP/Getty Images)



A fighter from the National Congress for People's Defence (CNDP) holds his recently captured gun and ammunition during a parade on October 14, 2008 in a village near a base in Rumangabo just north of the Eastern Congolese town of Goma. (ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP/Getty Images)



A rebel fighter from the CNDP, leans on his rocket propelled grenade launcher as he stands overlooking a valley where the north-east Congolese town of Rutshuru is located in the North Kivu area some 75 km north of Goma on October 23, 2008. Ruthshuru was then under the control of the Congolese National Army. Rebel forces in the Democratic Republic of Congo told AFP on October 26 they had captured a strategic camp in the east of the country from government forces, a claim confirmed by UN sources here. (ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP/Getty Images)



A boy passes in front of the MONUC camp near Kibumba Internally Displaced People (IDP) camp, about 35 kilometers (21.7 miles) north of the provincial capital of Goma, on October 27, 2008. Thousands of Congolese people fled to Goma from the Rugari town and from the Kibumba IDP camp after recent violence. DR Congo President Joseph Kabila named a new government of "combat and reconstruction" on Monday in a bid to pacify the giant central African country, shaken by an upsurge in rebel violence. (WALTER ASTRADA/AFP/Getty Images)



A U.N. peacekeeper from India on board a jeep passes by a Congolese woman on the road to Rutshuru, about 75 kilometers from the provincial capital of Goma, on October 16, 2008. (WALTER ASTRADA/AFP/Getty Images)



Uruguayan U.N. soldiers deploy to an observation post near the village of Kibati some 12 kilometers north of Goma in eastern Congo, Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2008. The U.N. peacekeeping force in Congo is stretched to the limit with an upsurge in fighting in the volatile east and needs more troops quickly, the top U.N. envoy to Congo, Alan Doss said Tuesday.(AP Photo/Karel Prinsloo)



A U.N. peacekeeper from India stands guard upon the arrival of French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner at the IDP camp in Kibati, about 10 kilometers (6 miles) north of the provincial capital of Goma, on November 1, 2008. (WALTER ASTRADA/AFP/Getty Images)



A rain cloud opens up in the sky over a mountain volcano where Rwanda, DR Congo and Uganda share borders on October 21, 2008. Thousands of Congolese nationals have fled their homes deep inside Congolese territory into an area that straddles the north-east border of the Democratic Republic of Congo and the western part of Uganda in search for safety after rebel fighters from the National Congress for People's Defense (CNDP). Renewed clashes in eastern DR Congo since August 28 have displaced more than 100,000 people. (ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP/Getty Images)



Internally Displaced People leave Kibati heading north from the city to their villages, Kibumba and Rugari, north of the provincial capital of Goma, Congo, on November 2, 2008. Several thousand people displaced in the fighting between rebels and government troops in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo began returning home Sunday as a ceasefire held, an AFP correspondent on the scene reported. (YASUYOSHI CHIBA/AFP/Getty Images)



A Congolese policeman (lower right) tries to stop people entering the Mercy Corps base where UNICEF and IMC (International Medical Corps) were distributing High nutrition cookies to children at at the IDP camp in Kibati, north of Goma, DR Congo, on November 1, 2008. (YASUYOSHI CHIBA/AFP/Getty Images)



The crowd of refugees bursts through the gates of the Mercy Corps base next to a refugee camp on November 1, 2008 in the outskirts of Goma. (Uriel Sinai/Getty Images)



Congolese children look on in an IDP camp on November 2, 2008 outside of Goma, DR Congo. Tutsi rebel leader, General Laurent Nkunda forced thousands to flee their homes and refugee camps in Goma during a surge in fighting this week as conflict renewed in the DRC during the past two months. The U.N. Security Council met in an emergency session to address the deteriorating situation in the DRC on October 29, 2008 after the Congolese Army threatened to disband. (Uriel Sinai/Getty Images)



Internally Displaced People gather in a provisional IDP camp in Kibati, north of Goma, DR Congo on November 2, 2008. Thousands of displaced sought to return home Sunday in eastern DR Congo as a ceasefire held, but European diplomats warned that 1.6 million were at risk despite a rebel propaganda offensive that included a parade. (YASUYOSHI CHIBA/AFP/Getty Images)



A boy stands on a hill overlooking a refugee camp in the outskirts of Goma in the North Kivu region of DR Congo on October 31, 2008. The UN said today it had credible reports of Congolese rebels looting and burning refugee camps, sparking a new exodus of 50,000 refugees in a widening humanitarian crisis. (ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP/Getty Images)



Displaced people walk past the body of a Congolese government soldier as they return home, Friday, Oct. 31, 2008 near Kibumba some 40 kilometers north of Goma in eastern DR Congo. Thousands of war-weary refugees returned to the the road Friday, taking advantage of a rebel-called cease-fire to try to reach home beyond the front lines of this week's battles in eastern Congo.(AP Photo/Karel Prinsloo)



A man covers the body of a 17 year-old student allegedly killed last night by a group of Congolese soldiers after they looted his house and asked him to carry the belongings into a van in the Katindo neighborhood of Goma, on October 30, 2008. Congolese rebels closed in on this strategic eastern city sparking chaos as government forces, residents and tens of thousands of refugees scrambled to leave. The UN Security Council late Wednesday slammed the rebel push toward the provincial capital and expressed alarm at reports of heavy weapons fire across DR Congo's border with Rwanda. (WALTER ASTRADA/AFP/Getty Images)



Displaced people scavenge for building material near Kibumba, north of Goma, DR Congo on Saturday, Nov. 1, 2008. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)



A baby looks up at his mother in an improvised hut at a refugee camp on November 1, 2008 in the outskirts of Goma, DR Congo. Tutsi rebel leader, General Laurent Nkunda has forced thousands to flee their homes and refugee camps in Goma during a surge in fighting recently. (Uriel Sinai/Getty Images)



Rebel General Laurent Nkunda (right) makes a point as he speaks with the international press on November 2, 2008 at a house in the north eastern Congolese town of Kitshoumba days after his army belonging to the National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) pushed their way to the outskirts of Goma. (ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP/Getty Images)



A rebel loyal to Laurent Nkunda's movement is seen carrying a rocket propelled grenade launcher, near Rutshuru, 80 kilometers north of Goma in eastern DR Congo, Saturday, Nov. 1, 2008. Nkunda's fighters advanced to the doorstep of Goma Wednesday, forcing U.N. peacekeepers and the bedraggled army to retreat in tanks and commandeered civilian cars. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)



A man rests his arm on the head of a child as he and his family walk away from the north-east Congolese town of Goma near the Nyirangong volcano on November 01, 2008. Some of the thousands of refugees who had fled the violence in clashes between the forces of rebel General Laurent Nkunda and the DR Congo armed forces started making their way back to displaced camps they have lived in for years and some others headed home. (ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP/Getty Images)

More:

In Congo, a Little Fighting Brings a Lot of Fear - NYTimes.com, 11/2

Congo rebel leader wants direct talks with government - Boston.com, 10/31

DR Congo - Wikipedia Entry

Battle of Goma, 2008 - Wikipedia Entry

DR Congo - NYTimes Topics Page

MONUC U.N. Mission in DR Congo