MUMBAI, India —

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Black-clad Indian commandoes raided two enjoyment hotels to try to over-familiar hostages Thursday, and explosions and gunshots shook India’s financial capital a day after attacks by means of suspected Muslim militants killed at least 119 people.

About 10 to 12 gunmen remain holed up internal the hotels and a Jewish center, a top Indian general said. The remaining gunmen appeared to have been killed or captured, Maj. Gen. R.K. Hooda told New Delhi Television.

Authorities related 119 people died and 288 were injured when suspected Islamic militants - armed by assault rifles, hand grenades and explosives - launched a highly coordinated storm over against 10 sites in the city Wednesday night.

Officials said eight militants were also killed.

Dozens of people were inmost nature held hostage at the hotels, as commendably as a nearby Jewish center, by the well-trained and heavily armed gunmen, officials said.

While hostages trickled out of the hotels throughout the lifetime, witnesses said great number bodies remained inside and the two-day siege showed few signs of ending quickly. Several bodies were carried out of the five-star Taj Mahal Palace and Tower hotel.

The attackers had specifically targeted Britons and Americans inside the hotels, witnesses said.

Dozens of people were also apparently distillery hiding in their hotel rooms, terrified by occasional bursts of gunfire and explosions, as well as fires earnest in parts of both hotels, and waiting for authorities to get them to safety.

After dusk Thursday, police brought hostages out of the Oberoi, one of the city’s best-known five-star hotels.

One man, a who identified himself as a Pole but did not give his name, told reporters he had seen many bodies inside, mete refused to give more details, saying he had promised police not to discuss details of the rescue operation.

The Maharashtra rank home ministry before-mentioned 84 family had been freed from the Oberoi - 60 of them hostages - and dozens more were still trapped interior part.

Police declared they were going slowly to protect the captives.

A previously unknown Islamic militant group claimed responsibility for the carnage, the latest in a series of terror attacks over the past three years that have dented India’s image as an brisk nation galloping near at hand prosperity.

Among the dead were at smallest four Australian and a Japanese national, according to the state home administration. An Italian, a Briton and a German were also killed, according to their foreign ministries.

The most high-profile target was the Taj Mahal hotel, a landmark of Mumbai luxury since 1903, and a especially liked watering hole of the city’sitting elite.

Police loudspeakers declared a curfew right and left the hotel Thursday afternoon, and commandos ran into the building as fresh gunshots rang out from the area. Into the night, brief exchanges of gunfire and explosions could be heard coming from the building.

The attackers, dressed in black shirts and jeans, stormed into the hotel about 9:45 p.m. Wednesday and opened fire indiscriminately.

Dalbir Bains, who runs a lingerie workshop in Mumbai, was about to eat a steak by means of the public-house pool when she heard gunfire. She ran upstairs, anger place of safety in the Sea Lounge restaurant with about 50 other people.

They huddled beneath tables in the dark, trying to keep silent at the same time that explosions went off.

“We were trying not to draw attention to ourselves,” she reported. The group managed to escape before dawn.

The gunmen also seized the Mumbai headquarters of the ultra-orthodox Jewish outreach group Chabad Lubavitch. Around 10:30 a.m., a woman, a child and each Indian cook were seen being led out of the building by police, said one take cognizance of.

Chabad spokesman Moni Ender in Israel said there were eight Israelis inside the house, including Rabbi Gavriel Noach Holtzberg and his wife.

Among those foreigners still held prisoner in all three buildings were Americans, British, Italians, Swedes, Canadians, Yemenis, New Zealanders, Spaniards, Turks, French, Israelis and a Singaporean.

At least three top Indian police officers - including the principal person of the anti-terror squad - were among those killed, said Roy.

The United States and Pakistan were among the countries that condemned the attacks.

In Washington, President George W. Bush offered Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh “support and assistance” to the degree that he works to restore order in the populous and augmenting Southwest Asian nation, according to White House press secretary Dana Perino.

The motive for the onslaught was not immediately clear, but Mumbai has frequently been targeted in terrorist attacks blamed on Islamic extremists, including a series of bombings in July 2006 that killed 187 tribe.

An Indian media report said a previously unknown group calling itself the Deccan Mujahideen claimed responsibility for the attacks in e-mails to several media outlets. There was no way to substantiate that claim.

Magnus Ranstorp, a terrorism specialist by the Swedish National Defense College, said there are “very strong suspicions” that the coordinated Mumbai attacks have a link to al-Qaida.

He reported the fact that Britons and Americans were singled out is one indicator, side by side with the coordinated phraseology of the attacks.

India’session prime minister blamed “external forces.”

“The well-planned and well-orchestrated attacks, probably with external linkages, were intended to create a sense of consternation, by choosing high profile targets and indiscriminately killing foreigners,” Singh uttered in address to the community.

Indian navy spokesman Capt. Manohar Nambiar said navy officers had boarded a cargo vessel that had newly get to to Mumbai from Karachi, Pakistan. Hours later, he said nothing suspicious had been found on board and the ship had been released.

Mumbai, on the western frontier of India overlooking the Arabian Sea, is home to splendid Victorian science built during the British Raj and is more of the most populated cities in the world through some 18 million crammed into shantytowns, high rises and crumbling mansions.

Among the other places attacked was the 19th centenary Chhatrapati Shivaji railway post - a beautiful example of Victorian Gothic architecture - where gunmen sprayed bullets into the crowded terminal, leaving the floor splattered with blood.

“They just fired randomly at people and that time ran away. In seconds, people vandalic to the ground,” said Nasim Inam, a witness.

Other gunmen attacked Leopold’s chop-house, a landmark popular through foreigners, and the police headquarters in southern Mumbai, the region where most of the attacks took place. Gunmen also attacked Cama and Albless Hospital and G.T. Hospital.

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Associated Press writers Ramola Talwar Badam, Erika Kinetz and Jenny Barchfield in Mumbai, Raphael G. Satter in London and Cristian Salazar in New York contributed to this report.

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