“Commandos Surround Chabad House
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu and Hana Levi Julian

“Sky News is reporting that two powerful explosions were heard an hour ago from the Nariman House building which houses Mumbai’s Chabad House, in India, where at least five Islamist terrorists are still holed up. It is believed that five Israelis are being held hostage.

“Hundreds of commandos have surrounded the building and have already killed one terrorist, but five others are still believed to be hiding in the building. Unconfirmed reports said that another terrorist at the nearby Taj Mahal Hotel may have been caught alive.

“Chabad-Lubavitch emissary Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife Rivka were both reported unconscious, as were several of the Israelis, according to a babysitter who managed to escape and called the family shortly after the siege began. The Foreign Ministry reported that between 10 and 15 Israelis believed to be in Mumbai, formerly known as Bombay, have not been reached and their whereabouts and condition are still unknown.

“Local police previously secured the release of the couple’s one and a half-year-old son Moshe, but both parents were still being held captive.

“Rivka Holtzberg’s father, Rabbi Shimon Rozenberg, is reportedly flying out to the scene. Rabbi Rozenberg is the principal of Migdal Ohr Girls’ High School in Migdal Emek, which was founded by his brother-in-law, Rabbi Yitzchak David Grossman, winner of the Israel Prize and numerous other public awards.

“A previously unknown Muslim terrorist group linked to the international Al Qaeda terrorist organization calling itself the Deccan Mujahedin claimed responsibility for the massive multi-site terror attack carried out late Wednesday night in the city formerly known as Bombay. Mumbai is home to some 15 million people and is India’s largest city.

“The terrorists struck two luxury hotels frequented by Americans and British nationals, the Taj Mahal Hotel and the Oberoi Hotel as well as the city’s largest train station, a movie theater and the Cama Hospital with automatic weapons and grenades. Intelligence sources said the level of sophisticated training and weapons employed by the terrorists made it clear that they were not local criminals. The terrorists were armed with AK-47 assault rifles and grenades.

“Also among the nine sites struck by the group throughout “the city that never sleeps” was the Chabad House, a popular stop for Israeli tourists passing through the area who are provided with kosher food and Jewish programs there.

“Three top police officials were among at least 101 dead in the attacks, including Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) Chief Hemant Karkare, Additional Commissioner Ashok Kamte and encounter specialist Vijay Salaskar, reported IBN News, which said Karkare had received death threats in phone calls at his home within the past several days.

“The terrorists have demanded that India release “all mujahedins,” and that “only after that will we release the people,” as they told a local television station. Several other Israelis have maintained telephone contact from their eighth-floor hotel rooms. The Chabad website reported that “the situation is grim.”

“American and British nationals were reportedly being separated out from among other foreigners and held as hostages, according to one British citizen who told Sky News television that he had watched as a gunman asked a group of some 40 hostages for their country of origin. Those who were from Italy, he said, were released, but British and American citizens were held.

“British European Parliament Member Sajjad Karim told the television network before his cell phone went dead that he was barricaded in a darkened restaurant in the basement of the Oberoi Hotel. “We are now in the dark in this room and we have barricaded all the doors. It’s really bad,” he said. Some 200 people were reported being held hostage at the Oberoi Hotel.

“It is also estimated that there are still between 45 to 50 hostages being held by the terrorists at the Taj Mahal Hotel. Five terrorists were reported dead and 14 police officers were killed as well in the exchange of gunfire at the hotel, where thick black smoke billowed from the windows on the upper floors.

“NDTV reported that Indian security officials believe the terrorists may have infiltrated into the city by sea. There is little regulation in the Bombay Harbor, noted the journalist in his report. Nariman House is located in the southern part of the city, along the water.”

Bollocks. The anti-semitism in the Bible is vast and frightening.

And given how you’re a Catholic, you should be hiding your head in shame at the actions of “Pope” Pius – which you’ve still not shown the slightest remorse for.

Proving, as all the bien-pensants already know, that these events are mere politics, and have nothing whatsoever to do with Islam.

http://www.aina.org/news/20081126035704.htm

John P, please point to where I have denied the moral corruption of Islamism. Or stop lying.

Alec do you seriously think that the Koran of Islamism is different document when compared to the Koran the larger Muslim community uses?

Islamism isn’t a perverted and ocrrupted version of *pure* Islam, rather it is part and parcel of it, a completely legitimate and, dare I say, mainstream interpretation of ‘holy’ scripture.

Admitting that, acknowledging that, WITHOUT attacking or smearing rank and file Muslims is a step we need to take.

If people of a particular faith or culture, having been forbidden from questioning anything about that faith for culture, are easily led by the nose and just as easily swallow whole what is told them, then, yes, the faith system is blameworthy for any violence inspired and perpetuated by it.

The Islamist stock in trade is to divide and terrorise, to set people against each other. Where this doesn’t happen, we get Islamist apologists like Bunglawala, stoking up paranoia and fears of persecution doubtless in the hope that this will be prove to be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Worse, it deliberately manipulates those whom it forbids from questioning what it does.

Sadly I fear you are correct, although I disagree that there is anything inherently wrong with a blog linking to a current event.

After Mumbai, an end to complacency?