Video Attacks in Mumbai, India

How the Mumbai attacks unfolded

Investigators in the Indian city of Mumbai are beginning to piece together how gunmen carried out Wednesday's series of deadly attacks.
The exact sequence of events remains unclear, but security personnel are establishing a picture of how the operation was planned and executed.
All the signs, officials say, point to a well-planned action carried out by a highly trained, determined group.
The men appeared to have surveyed their targets in advance and were well-versed in the use of weapons and explosives, a Indian commando said.
Their intention, he said, was "to create and spread terror".
Investigators believe that a large group of men arrived in Mumbai from the sea around 2100 local time.
They believe that a larger ship - possibly a hijacked vessel, possibly an accomplice ship - brought them close to the shore before they switched to smaller dinghies.
Once ashore, they split into two-, three- and four-man groups to attack pre-selected targets.
Several of the attackers were caught on CCTV. Footage showed mainly young men, carrying automatic weapons and large rucksacks.
Officials said the rucksacks contained grenades, extra ammunition, plastic explosives and food supplies.
Multiple attacks
Reports suggest the attacks happened within minutes of each other.
By using such weapons and explosives, it is obvious that they would have been trained somewhere
Unidentified commando in Mumbai
One of the first targets was the Chhatrapati Shivaji railway station, where at least two men fired automatic weapons and threw grenades at crowds of people waiting in the main hall.
A second group opened fire at Café Leopold, a popular restaurant, while a third seized Nariman House, a business complex housing a Jewish outreach centre, taking several people hostage.
A fourth group - or, some reports say, the same one that attacked the station nearby - struck the Cama and Albless hospital for women and children. A number of drive-by shootings were also reported across the city.
By around 2200 local time gun fire was being reported at two of the city's luxury hotels - the Oberoi-Trident and the Taj Mahal Palace.

Hundreds of troops have been deployed to sites around Mumbai
Some guests managed to escape what they described as indiscriminate fire, while others sheltered in their rooms. Others were shot - exactly how many remains unclear.
The gunmen were looking for Americans and Britons, guests trapped at the hotels said, and hostages were taken in both locations.
Gunfire and small blasts continued to be heard at both hotels over the next several hours, as Indian troops surrounded the buildings. Fires broke out in both hotels.
'Trained somewhere'
In the early hours of Thursday, commando teams entered both hotels to try to find the gunmen.
Attackers at the Taj Mahal appeared familiar with the layout and moved continually around the building, firing their weapons. They definitely appeared to have been trained, the commando said.
"Not everybody can fire the AK series of weapons, not everybody can throw grenades like that," he said. "By using such weapons and explosives, it is obvious that they would have been trained somewhere."
The commandos went through the hotels floor by floor and room by room to flush out the attackers and free trapped guests and staff.
Reports that particular locations had been made safe were several times followed by fresh bursts of gunfire and explosions, and the crisis entered a third day.
By Friday afternoon (local time), Indian security forces said that they had control of the Oberoi. Multiple bodies had been found, they said.
But battles were still continuing at the Taj Mahal and Nariman House.
The attackers had come "very well prepared", the commando said. Asked how long they could hold out, he said: "They can go on and on."

Dalai Lama presented with Jewish prayer shawl during visit to France

PARIS (EJP)---The Dalai Lama, who ended last weekend a 12-day visit to France, received a Tallit, a traditional Jewish prayer shawl, from a French Jewish official.
Hubert Allouche, an official of CRIF, the umbrella representative group of Jewish organizations in France, was among the few guests to attend last Friday the inauguration by the Tibetan spiritual leader of a Buddhist temple in Roquedonde, in southern France.

The 73-year-old Dalai Lama presented Allouche with a long white silk scarve, a Tibetan gesture of welcome, hospitality and respect.

The CRIF representative in his turn offered the Tibetan leader the Tallit. “It was for me a great honor and a great satisfaction,” Allouche said.

“I told the Dalai Lama that our two people are linked by a community of fate. That we are attached to our culture and our faith. The bridges between Judaism and Buddhism are numerous. Such a meeting is a sign of great fraternity.”

Allouche added: “The Dalai Lama said he feels a sincere affection towards the Jewish people.”

France’s first lady, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner and Human Rights Minister Rama Yade also attended the ceremony.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy declined a meeting with the Dalai Lama during his visit, sparking accusations from opposition Socialists that "the only guiding principle (of Sarkozy's policy towards China) appears to be not to displease Beijing."

His office said, however, that Sarkozy will meet with the Dalai Lama before the year's end.

Beijing had cautioned Sarkozy that meeting the Tibetan spiritual leader would have "serious consequences" for bilateral relations, and warned France to deal prudently with the "important and sensitive" issue of Tibet.

Jewish-American family builds school and mosque in Cambodian village

When residents of this poor, Cambodian village need something built, they call on the Lightmans.
The Jewish-American family's latest gift: a mosque.
"We never had such a beautiful mosque in our village," said 81-year-old Leb Sen, a toothless, village elder with a wrinkled face. "The young people said to me that I am very lucky to live long enough to see one now."
Flashing a broad grin, Leb Sen brought his palms together and bowed repeatedly in gratitude toward his American donors - Alan Lightman; his wife, Jean Greenblatt Lightman and their daughter, Elyse.
Alan Lightman, a 59-year-old humanities professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said building the mosque was not part of his family's original plan to improve education in the village, about 44 miles northwest of the capital, Phnom Penh.
"It's too much to comprehend. We never imagined that we would build a mosque in a remote village in Cambodia," said Lightman, author of the best-selling novel "Einstein's Dreams."
"It was so strange for us to be there," he added, " ... halfway across the planet, and it's a religion that's far from our religion."
The Lightmans first learned about the village in 2003, when a friend introduced them to various rural education projects. Two years later, the Harpswell Foundation, an organization founded by Lightman to help children and young women in developing countries, built a four-room concrete school, the village's first.
Some of the 600 villagers came to Lightman in 2006 asking him to fund a new health center, a popular choice among the women, and a mosque, which the men favored. He told the villagers they would have to choose one. In the male-dominated community, it was a mosque.
"The men have won again, but the mosque is also very important for preserving our culture and tradition," said 50-year-old Sit Khong, one of the five women in the village who were part of a committee to pick the project. "We will never find enough money to build it ourselves anyway."
The mosque, with the gold-colored inscription "Funded by Loving Gift of Lightman Family" above the front door, opened on May 9. It can accommodate about 200 people and replaces a tiny building on wood stilts that held only 30 worshippers.
The villagers follow Imam-San, a small Islamic sect that incorporates Buddhism, Hinduism and animism. The Imam-San makes up about 3 percent of Cambodia's 700,000 Muslims, who themselves represent only 5 percent of Cambodia's 14 million people, according the U.S. State Department annual report on religious freedom.
Besides mixing in elements of other religions, Imam-San followers pray only once a week, not the traditional five times a day. "In the view of the real teaching of Islam, they are not pure," said Tin Faizine, a 24-year-old Muslim student who was interpreting for the Lightmans.
Elyse Lightman, who is writing a book about Imam-San culture and traditions, said she was happy to help a community that is not fully embraced by either mainstream Muslims or Buddhists, Cambodia's majority religious group.
"You can see why Muslims don't consider them to be their own," she said. "And then Buddhists say, 'Well, you pray to Allah.' So, they're caught in the middle."
She noted that the Imam-San, like the Jews, have faced persecution over the centuries, most recently when the Khmer Rouge seized power in Cambodia from 1975 to 1979 and abolished all religion.
"I think there is part of me that felt some sort of kinship in this," she said.
About 500 followers of Imam-San from around the country came to this village of wooden houses and mango trees to celebrate the opening of the new mosque.
Sem Ahmad, 57, said he wanted the Lightman family to help build a mosque in his village in Battambang province in northwestern Cambodia. "It is beautiful. I'd love to have the same mosque because we do not have one like this in our village," he said.
But Lightman said this would be his "first and last" mosque, because "I don't think I have the resources or the time to build more mosques."
The mosque was built with $20,000 from his family's savings, not the foundation's funds, he said.
In the future, he plans to focus on education for underprivileged Cambodians, which is his foundation's main goal.