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American Morning
Mumbai Massacre: Bush and Obama Condemn Attacks; Explosions and Gunfire Continue in Mumbai, India
Aired November 27, 2008 - 08:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN CO-HOST: We're just about to hit the top of the hour now. Recapping breaking news for you, explosion and gunfire continue in Mumbai, India this morning. Hostages remain inside the burning Taj Hotel. Police say teams of gunmen stormed at least 10 different sites over the past 21 hours. They singled out people with American and British passports, threw grenades, exchanged gunfire with police. Authorities say more than 100 people were killed and more than 300 injured.
We have a bit of good news to report to you right now. We understand at the Oberoi Hotel, which is down the street from the Taj, 10 to 15 hostages have been released. And you see them walking here. These are live pictures, as it happens right now. All morning long the Indian Army has been inside the Oberoi Hotel, going floor to floor. We've heard explosions and gunfire coming from the hotel. We didn't know how many hostages were held but now we know at least 10 to 15 were, because they're being released right now.
Now we don't know if that means that the terrorists holding these people hostage have been killed or arrested. We have no idea. Authorities really aren't talking to reporters right now, but we're so relieved to report a bit of good news on this Thanksgiving day.
JOHNS: For once.
COSTELLO: For once.
Happening right now in New York City, travelers and terrorists are facing beefed up security after reports Al Qaeda may have been plotting to unleash suicide bombers on subways and commuter trains. Police are taking no chances, flooding trains and subway stations with heavily armed officers.
So let's go right now to Sara Sidner. Oh, I'm sorry, we're going to Brianna Keilar now.
JOHNS: All right. Good enough. Right now, we're going to go to Washington and Brianna Keilar who has been monitoring this situation. She says, among other things that President Bush has been condemning the attacks. Let's talk a little bit about that Brianna.
What do you know from the White House and the sitting president.
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well of course, Joe, President Bush is at Camp David today for the Thanksgiving holiday. But he's keeping an eye on the situation in Mumbai, getting regular updates on the developments there, according to the White House.
In a paper statement released yesterday evening, the White House said President Bush expressed his condolences to the Indian people and also condemned the terrorist attack. The White House also saying last night that the National Security Council, these are the president's top national security advisers, that they convened with intelligence and counterterrorism officials, as well as officials from the State Department, as well as officials at the Defense Department and, of course, India a priority for this White House.
Both, of course, share the unfortunate distinction of having been targeted by terrorists in the past. But also, India, 1 billion plus people, very much a growing economy, the world's largest democracy. This is a very important and strategic ally to the U.S. This is a relationship between the U.S. and India that's been a major push of this administration, especially in last few years.
That push really culminating actually in the last month, in the finalization of an agreement between the U.S. and India that lifted a ban on nuclear trade with India that had been in place for more than three decades. So, the White House saying that they're very much keeping an eye on the developments in Mumbai -- Joe.
JOHNS: The second fastest growing economy in the world, I'm told. Probably only behind China. So, what are we expecting to hear from the White House today?
KEILAR: We're being told that if we do hear from President Bush, we're not too expecting an on-camera statement, if there are going to be updates, we're going to receive that in the form of a paper statement. So, we're waiting to see if that does happen -- Joe.
JOHNS: Great. Again, just to point out, as you said right there at the top, President Bush is not at the White House today. He is at Camp David. Thanks so much, Brianna.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: I believe we're going to head out to Chicago now to check in with Ed Henry. He's covering the Obama side of the story, because the Obama camp has also been apprised of this situation.
Ed, bring us up to date.
ED HENRY, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, good morning, Carol. You're right. This could be an awkward situation just because of this transition. You know, confusion around the world, who's really in charge, et cetera. But obviously, as Brianna's pointing out, President Bush is still in power for a couple of more months. He is on top of the situation.
But also here in Chicago, Barack Obama is trying to stay up on this situation. He wants to make sure that he knows exactly what's going on. And in fact, he's getting briefings from the very top. Last night, he had a phone call with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. She pledged that she would keep the president-elect in the loop in these hours today and moving forward, according to aides familiar with the call.
Also at the staff level, we're told there's been a lot of contact between Obama and Bush aides. They're working together on this, much as they have on the financial crisis in recent days, making sure that this transition of power is very smooth.
There was a statement put out last evening by Brooke Anderson. She's the chief national security spokesperson for the Obama transition team. She said, quote, "These coordinated attacks on innocent civilians demonstrate the grave and urgent threat of terrorism. The United States must continue to strengthen our partnership with India and nations around the world to root out and destroy terrorist networks. We stand with the people of India whose democracy will prove far more resilient than the hateful ideology that led to these attacks."
That statement from the chief national security spokesperson from the Obama transition team here in Chicago. Barack Obama today, here at his residence in Chicago, planning to spend the Thanksgiving holiday with family and friends. But we're told he's still getting national security updates from his staff and will get them throughout the day.
Carol?
COSTELLO: OK, Ed, I'm just curious about something. Next week, Barack Obama is expected to name Hillary Clinton as secretary of state. We know that Condoleezza Rice has been reaching out to the Indian government and reporting back to President Bush. So, if Hillary Clinton is named secretary of state, will she be apprised of the situation that's happening right now in Mumbai?
HENRY: I mean, it's certainly possible especially since she's still a sitting United States senator, of course, that she could get some information, she has access to some intelligence. But I wouldn't anticipate her getting the same level of briefing that President-elect Obama is getting simply because she is technically still not been even nominated for a secretary of state post.
But you raised a good point about the fact this week has really been dominated by financial security. Barack Obama rolling out his economic team first because of the seriousness, the grave situation with the U.S. economy, the world markets, et cetera.
But he was planning and still is planning to roll out his national security team next week. Hillary Clinton, as secretary of state, as you say. Robert Gates, the current defense secretary, expected to stay on for at least a year and we're told the reason there is for stability at the Pentagon. We obviously have these wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention the situation in India, threats from Iran and North Korea.
It's just this whole situation points out to the fact that as important as the economy is, there are some grave national security challenges, the new president will be confronting.
Carol?
COSTELLO: I think that's an understatement, sadly. Ed Henry, live in Chicago. Thanks.
JOHNS: And we've spent so much time over the last week talking about the economy. This really underscores the point that terrorism is the number one threat in the world right now. Let's go out to Sara Sidner. She is live once again outside the Taj Hotel in Mumbai.
Sara, you've been ducking and dodging throughout the daylight now. I see the light is falling.
SARA SIDNER, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it's about 6:35 p.m. here in India. And sorry I'm talking to you with a cell phone to my ear. It's the only way I can hear you right now. We have some technical issues. But I can hear you loud and clear.
What is happening here over the last few hours has been, as you've heard and seen live on CNN, several blasts from inside the hotel as well as several rounds of gunfire, which sounded like automatic gunfire. But it's been quiet, I have to say, for the last half an hour. There's been a little bit of movement. A large light has been put on to one section of the Taj. And some of the fire brigade, you can hear a little bit of -- sirens are going off and the fire brigade has shown up. An extra ambulance has (OFF-MIKE) just now. We have heard...
JOHNS: Sara?
SIDNER: (OFF-MIKE) that would be over soon. That was several hours ago. We still obviously have not gotten finished with the situation.
Yes, Joe?
JOHNS: Good enough. So, Sara, we also got word of some hostages being released. Did you hear anything about that?
SIDNER: We did. We heard that there were several hostages released, not from necessarily the Taj, but the Oberoi Hotel, which is also another fancy and fabulous five-star hotel here in Mumbai. We were hearing that there were several hostages, but we don't have an actual number at this point.
And that's been kind of the story of the day. No actual numbers, not giving us very specific ideas about what's going on inside and how police and the army and some of the commanders are dealing with the situation, but obviously very tense.
There are still lots of army personnel armed to the hilt with their guns. Some have handguns. Some have machine guns. All wearing, you know, bulletproof vests and that sort of thing. And so the situation is still quite active, although, I have to say, there's only a bit of smoke now coming from the building. And we haven't heard any of those loud bangs or any of the gunshots in the past about hour and hour and 15 minutes. Joe and Carol?
JOHNS: Well, it's good to at least see you not crouched behind a car right now. Thanks, and stay safe.
Mumbai has been the scene of several terrorist attacks in recent years. Here's more in an "AM Extra."
Yesterday's attacks killed more than 100 people and injured more than 300. In 2006, a string of bombs ripped through packed commuter trains and platforms during rush hour. More than 200 people were killed. And in 2003, 52 people were killed when two bombs hidden in taxis exploded just minutes apart.
COSTELLO: And, Joe, we have a bit of developing news right now. This is according to Zain Verjee. She's getting this information from the State Department. Apparently, there have been at least three U.S. citizens injured in Mumbai. We don't know how they were injured. We don't know whether they were inside of those hotels. But we do understand right now that three U.S. citizens have been injured in Mumbai. When we get more information, of course, we'll pass it along.
Terrorists, of course, on a rampage there. Hostages still being held at gunpoint. More shots and explosions this morning. Now, the U.S. trying to find out who, why and where. Our expert, Peter Bergen, on what his sources are saying. It's nine minutes after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VOICE OF UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There are about 25 people in my room and everybody was just lying still, lying under tables, lying under furniture and just, you know, being very quiet and hoping it would past. But we could hear it all. We could hear -- we knew when the army were in. We could hear the army running through the hotel. And we just heard the gunfire and later the blast. Most definitely, the worst experience of my entire life. And you know, it was just horrendous, absolutely horrendous. Never experienced anything like it and hope I never do again.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JOHNS: Witnesses painting a frightening picture as terrorists continue their siege on the city of Mumbai.
COSTELLO: Yes and with the bloody attacks overseas and new warnings at home, fears of another terror attack are getting higher over the holiday season. We want to bring in our national security analyst Peter Bergen.
Good morning, Peter.
PETER BERGEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Good morning, Carol. COSTELLO: So, we're trying to figure out who was behind this siege in Mumbai. I mean, we know that they were young men. We know that they came from the Arabian Sea. They were heavily armed with automatic weapons and grenades and they hit ten locations simultaneously. What does that tell you about them?
BERGEN: Well, as Kelli Arena was pointing out earlier, obviously, this wasn't planned in a day. It must have taken several months. Now, the Indian prime minister said that there appeared to be external links, which, of course, is Indian code for some kind of Pakistani involvement.
It wouldn't be the first time that Pakistani terrorist groups have conducted large-scale operations in India. We saw that in 2001, Carol. You may recall there was an attack on the Indian parliament building in December of 2001. That almost brought India and Pakistan to war in 2002.
The intent of this attack is clearly to stir up trouble between Pakistan and India, particularly over the Kashmir issue. What is strange in this particular series of attacks is that the attackers haven't issued any demands when they have hostages. But as we've been reporting throughout the morning, clearly, they were looking for Americans, they were looking British citizens. And so...
COSTELLO: And Peter, why bring the United States and Britain into this, do you think?
BERGEN: Well, I mean, these are Islamist terrorist groups and the stated intention of these groups is to kill Americans and countries closely allied to them, like the British. So, that sort of fits into the modus operandi. While this wasn't a kind of classical suicide operation, it seems pretty obvious that everybody involved in these attacks has the expectation that they will die.
I mean, they're not going to -- there have been no -- as far as we've been reporting, none of the terrorists seemed to have survived. And I think it's unlikely, given the kinds of things that we've seen at the Taj Hotel and the Oberoi, that people would have survived, that terrorists would have survived these attacks.
So, it's de facto suicide operation, obviously, something that al Qaeda and affiliated groups have done throughout the last several years.
Carol?
COSTELLO: The other disturbing thing about this is no intelligence service seemed to know that this was going down. Should they have known?
BERGEN: You know, should is a -- you know, it's a very difficult thing to -- I wouldn't necessarily criticize the intelligence services. We've seen attacks on five-star hotels like this throughout the last several years, very recently the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad, the largest such attack in Pakistani history, killing more than 50 people. We've seen attacks on American-owned hotels in Jordan, killing 60 people in 2005; the J.W. Marriott in Jakarta, Indonesia.
These kinds of hotel attacks are very easy to conduct. Hotels, by definition, are soft targets. You can't turn them into fortresses because, of course, the whole point of a hotel is hospitality. So, it is not particularly hard target, obviously. And, you know, the lack of information or intelligence about this kind of attack, I don't think, that's necessarily something you can really criticize the Indian intelligence services.
COSTELLO: Great Britain came out this morning and said it would send help. Should the United States do the same thing?
BERGEN: Well, of course, you know, any country should extend help. The question is, you know, what is President-elect Obama -- this obviously brings the Kashmir issue even stronger as an issue forward. One of President Obama's advisers has been Bruce Riedel, who's in the Clinton White House, an expert on South Asia. He is long advocated that, you know, the United States should take a more active role in bringing peace to the Kashmir issue, which is, I think, an excellent idea.
It's an issue that the United States historically has tended not really to pay a lot of attention to. You can imagine in a future Obama administration a special envoy to the region particularly focused on bringing India and Pakistan into a more peaceful arrangement, is something that, I think, is somewhat likely as we go forward.
COSTELLO: But, you know, the United States has this added problem of Pakistan. There's a new leader there now. There's the problem of al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden in Pakistan. Pakistan and India both have nuclear weapons. This is the big problem for the United States, isn't it? It's not going to be easy to solve.
BERGEN: No, it isn't, Carol. I mean, you know, this is the single biggest foreign policy problem facing President-elect Obama because Afghanistan, Pakistan and India are all part -- they're interwoven, parts of the problems sort of cross borders, Afghanistan, Pakistan on the border, there you have al Qaeda.
Kashmir is the issue that generates a lot of the jihadi terrorist attacks in India and, of course, now in Pakistan. We've seen 60 suicide attacks in Pakistan last year, many of which were conducted by al Qaeda or Kashmiri militant groups or the Pakistani Taliban, who have sort of morphed together, both ideologically and tactically.
So, this is an enormous problem. Kashmir is sort of the key to unlocking this puzzle. If you can bring peace to Kashmir, which is a very, very difficult job, many of these problems then begin to evaporate. You begin having a closer relationship between Pakistan and India. The jihadi terrorist groups which exist in Pakistan have less reason to exist. Pakistan begins to have a closer relationship with Afghanistan, if it feels less threatened by India. So, all of these are part of the same puzzle.
COSTELLO: Last question for you. Americans obviously being targeted overseas. How worried should Americans be here on U.S. soil?
BERGEN: Well, you know, the report that al Qaeda is planning to attack the New York City subways is, I think, something we can file in the not very surprising file. I mean, yes, al Qaeda's talking about these attacks all the time. The question is, are they able to do anything in the United States?
Right now, I think their ability to do anything in the United States is close to zero. It's very hard to get terrorists into the United States. The American Muslim communities rejected the al Qaeda ideology and there seems to be no evidence of al Qaeda sleeper cells.
And so, if you can't get people in, if you don't have people being persuaded by the ideology, how do you do an attack in the United States? The answer is, you can't. So, while, yes, there is this report of a threat against New York City subways, the question of the ability of al Qaeda to do it is really the real question. And right now, their ability to launch an attack in the United States is extremely small.
COSTELLO: OK. So, I'm being selfishly American and you've just made me feel better. Peter Bergen, thanks for being with us this morning.
BERGEN: Thank you.
JOHNS: It's been a long, chaotic day in Mumbai and at the Taj Hotel, where we've had shots fired, explosions and now we're told army personnel are starting to leave the hotel. We're going to go back to Sara Sidner in Mumbai for the latest.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VOICE OF UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They shifted us, eventually, ten at a time -- women and children first, outside the hotel through a backfire escape and out into the -- out into the street, where we thought we were OK because we were away from the hotel. And then, again, we heard gunfire and we heard grenades and there was a lot of panic, people running, people getting trampled.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JOHNS: CNN's State Department correspondent Zain Verjee is here. She has been keeping us up to date all morning long.
And Zain, if I get the drift of the latest information you've reported, these hostage takers, terrorists, militants, what have you, who went into these various locations around the City of Mumbai, apparently, were looking for Britons and they were looking for Americans. It appears, at least so far, that they didn't find a lot of Americans.
ZAIN VERJEE, CNN STATE DEPARTMENT CORRESPONDENT: Well, we're just getting some more information from the State Department. What the State Department is saying right now is that they have just been able to confirm that at least three U.S. citizens have been injured. That's all they know. They're trying to get more information. We don't know the circumstances, who they are, how serious these injuries are. We also don't know if any Americans were or have been taken hostage, or if any have been killed. So, a lot of question marks, but at least three injuries.
COSTELLO: You know, I'm not -- I'm not connecting the two. But it's interesting this information comes on the heels of those 10 to 15 hostages just released from the Oberoi Hotel, which is of course down the way from the Taj Mahal. And the Indian army has been storming that hotel all morning. And they managed to get those people out. Don't know if any of them were Americans.
(CROSSTALK)
VERJEE: Could well be. I mean, you know, this is -- there are so many tourists that would have been there. There are so many business people that would have been there. You know, most of these hotels are frequented by foreigners. They're very, very expensive hotels, you know. Most Indians, the 19 million of Mumbai, can't afford hotels like that. So it's highly likely.
JOHNS: Typically, when you have an attack like this, what are they trying to do? They're trying destabilized some relationship, perhaps, or some government, and they're also trying to sort of internationalize, if you will, whatever attack by going after people from different countries. And that's what seems to be the case here.
VERJEE: It could be. The motive is really unclear right now. I mean, one of the strange parts here is, as Peter Bergen has pointed out is that, you know, these hostage takers haven't really made any specific demands. Their motivations could be, you know, get themselves, you know, on the international map, world attention focus. You know, target Americans and British and get their name out there, make a point, maybe even to the new president-elect.
It could be to undermine and frustrate the improving relationships between India and Pakistan. The other important thing to note, too, is that local elections are coming up in India and there's a lot of internal stuff that's going on, too, where the opposition is accusing the government of being lax on terrorism. There are going to be elections in the Kashmir region, as well, which is a volatile part of this whole story. And you know, most dots between India and Pakistan all go back to Kashmir.
JOHNS: And India would find itself in the position of sort of having to take the blame if it didn't have someone to blame.
VERJEE: Right. I mean, if -- if it's proven, and we have evidence and, you know, and we don't have it right now that there are in fact Islamic militants involved in executing an attack of this nature, the Indian government is going to be forced -- they will have little choice, politically, to speak out and lay blame and point fingers toward Pakistan. And, you know, these are two nuclear armed neighbors. Any little thing can spark off something really ugly and massive and draw the U.S. front and center. And this could be something that lands with a big thud on the president-elect's desk as he confronts India, Pakistan and his promised to address Kashmir.
COSTELLO: And I know Condoleezza Rice has already contacted, what, some members of the Indian government. I mean, really now it's up to her to kind of calm tensions between the two countries, right?
VERJEE: Well, yes. I mean, the -- that kind of diplomacy is going on. Secretary Rice is in touch with the U.S. diplomats on the ground, with the Indian diplomats, you know, in Washington, as well as officials in India, briefing President Bush, speaking to President- elect Obama.
But, we don't have all of the facts right now. You know, it's a dangerous situation because the U.S. is a strong ally of India. It's likely the U.S. will back India. Now the U.S. has been pressuring Pakistan to deal with the militants, deal with the border region, deal with Waziristan, get in there, you know. Get all the intelligence agencies and groups on board.
And there have been more predator attacks in that region. There's a private deal between the U.S. and the Pakistanis to go and attack. So, it's going to put -- the bottom line is, it may lead to more pressure on Pakistan to act to do something definitive in response to this. And it may put too much pressure on the very fragile Pakistani government that's in power.
And there's -- you know, there's a danger it could implode. Those are all the fears, but we need to get the facts first.
COSTELLO: Zain Verjee, thanks so much.
JOHNS: Thanks, again.
COSTELLO: There's a flurry of activity right now at the Taj Hotel. CNN's Sara Sidner is on the ground there. We'll go live to Mumbai. It's 26 minutes past.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
JOHNS: It's 29 minutes past the hour. Recapping breaking news right now. Explosions and gunfire continue in Mumbai, India this morning. Hostages remain inside the burning Taj Hotel, but some have been released from the Oberoi. Police say teams of gunmen stormed at least 10 different sites over the past 21 hours. They singled out people with American and British passports, threw grenades and exchanged fire with police.
Authority says more than 100 people have been killed. More than 300 are injured. CNN has confirmed the Indian navy ship -- the Indian navy boarded a ship with possible ties to the attacks.
CNN's Sara Sidner is live outside the Taj Hotel in Mumbai. She joins us on the phone right now.
Sara, I'm hoping that the situation has not degenerated and that's why you're on the phone. Tell us what the situation is and what you're seeing and hearing.
SIDNER: OK. So, off the record -- not off the record, excuse me. Commanders didn't want to go on television -- basically, told us, we are saying that the siege is basically over and we're shortly going to be bringing out people who were inside. Whether it's possible hostages or people who were just stuck inside that hotel.
Now what we have seen in the past few minutes, they have let the media get very, very close in. We were quite a ways back. And now they've let us all get pretty close to what is the front lobby of this hotel. And they've brought in the ambulances a lot closer with their lights sort of flashing, as well as a fire truck that has also gotten very, very close where before they were all held back.
And so all of that has gone forward. We notice about several police, army personnel coming out of the hotel, out of the Taj. So - and they appeared to be quite calm, quite pulled together. Their weapons were down, they had their uniforms and their flap jackets on but everything was quite calm and quite orderly from this hotel. So we're being told that this situation is, "over."
But we have not yet seen some of the ambulances leaving filled just yet. So we're waiting to see what happens in the next few minutes, if in fact there are people coming out, if in fact some of these - trying to get out information. They are keeping us a little ways back. We can see a little bit more of what's going on inside and around the Taj.
JOHNS: OK. So that's new information we have. Authorities telling you - it's authorities, right, telling you that the siege essentially is over at the Taj Hotel? hat's the first thing. You've been allowed to move a little bit closer. There are ambulances there, indicating that there are apparently some people inside who may be injured and need to be take an way, right?
SIDNER: Correct. Now one thing, just as I was telling you I didn't see any ambulances leaving. I'm NOW seeing ones that appear to HAVE come up to the front of the hotel, up to the lobby area, and then appears to be moving sort of away from the hotel. But again, we cannot see far enough in to see whether these are, you know, people just coming out of the hotel or if these are set aside for army personnel or what. There's sort of a calm movement of dozens of army personnel coming out. So the situation is definitely not as tense as it has been for the past, I don't know, 20 or so hours.
JOHNS: OK. So the other indication that we got, which was a little bit earlier, is that we had the military personnel leaving that location, which would certainly suggest to everybody that that hotel has been secured and apparently they've pretty much had to go room to room looking for people to make sure there were no suspects, as it were, or no persons who needed some type of assistance inside, right? SIDNER: I think that's a pretty good assessment there because authorities are moving away and taking, it seems to be, they're taking some groups of people out. I cannot see very well as to who, who may be in the ambulances. It's definitely died down quite a bit. It looks like some of even the police are sort of seem to be leaving the area at this hour.
JOHNS: All right. Good enough. No numbers yet, right? No numbers of people take into custody, people injured, people, otherwise casualties, what have you?
SIDNER: No, no numbers yet. No idea of who may have been in there, how many, how many possible terrorists might be - have been taken by police or the army. None of that yet but we hopefully will get back to you in a few minutes here.
JOHNS: Great reporting, Sara. Thanks so much for all you've done today.
SIDNER: Yes.
COSTELLO: You know, it's so wonderful to hear good news because at the Oberoi Hotel, just about 45 minutes ago, 10 to 15 hostages were released and now we hear the siege is over at the Taj as well. and we're relieved about that. And we're also hearing more from people who witnessed the horror in Mumbai. This thing has been going on for more than 20 hours now. We want to go to Amit Varma lives in Mumbai. He was out with friends when the attacks happened and he joins us now by phone.
Amit, first of all we hear that the siege is over in the Taj. How that make you feel?
VOICE OF AMIT VARMA, BLOGGER IN MUMBAI: It makes me feel very good that the nightmare is over, at least for some of the people inside, but it's still going on inside the Oberoi and there have been reports of fighting there. That's very worrying.
But you know overall even when this is over, this has really been a black night for us and any other Mumbai has witnessed. I mean we have had other attacks in the past, we had serial bomb blasts in 1993, we had a bomb blasts in our train a couple of years back. But the scale of these attacks are something else entirely the way they've been planned.
You had be gunmen hijacking police chiefs and going on the road telling people you've had bomb blasts in these two hotels. People taken hostage in these hotels, as well as the hospital. You had a petrol pump blown up and what's even worse that is that you know the people you look to protect you are the police.
And within two hours of the attacks starting all of the top police officers were dead in the shootings and that's really shaken everyone's confidence. Because what it really means is that we can't count on anyone to protect us.
COSTELLO: Right.
VARMA: And that's really scary.
COSTELLO: At least 14 police officers were killed in this. Tell me where you were when this broke out.
VARMA: I'm sorry?
COSTELLO: Where were you when this incident began?
VARMA: I had gone out to dinner with my friends. I was about 15 - I was about 100 meters away from the Taj and we were standing outside the restaurant when we heard gunshots. And we saw people running towards us, terrified. And the restaurant staff immediately ushered us inside and said we'll keep you safe. So we went inside and they said it's just a police encounter, that it's not a big deal. We switched to the TV that was there from sports to news to see what was going on.
And gradually, over 10, 15 minutes, half an hour, one hour the magnitude of the event grew as we realized what was happening.
COSTELLO: I just can't imagine the terror you must have felt when you slowly realized how serious this situation was.
VARMA: Absolutely. It was absolutely terrifying. I mean on one hand you think about your own person and how you'll get back home and so on, and you know whether it's safe to step out. As it happens we didn't step out. We stayed in that hotel the whole night.
But on the other hand you just wonder what's happening to your city because Mumbai used to be a really safe city. It's one of the safer cities in India. It's very cosmopolitan. It's a city where you know even a lone woman is safe at 1:00 in the morning. And to see something like this happen, and just to feel so out of control that the police were so helpless and the military had to be called in. It just shook us all up.
COSTELLO: I just want to remind our viewers again that the Bombay and Mumbai are the same place. And people who have lived there quite a long time call it Bombay.
The word that these terrorists were seemingly targeting Americans, what do you make of that?
VARMA: Look, I think all of Bombay's a soft target but the softest targets are really the big hotels. I mean if they want to get the attention of the world what better way to do it than to get Americans and westerners involved.
So you know what we heard on the news at the Taj they were stopping everybody with American and British passports and keeping them there. And that's a logical way to get the attention of the world. I mean I imagine the attacks are so horrific that people will still be paying attention to what happened, but obviously when your own citizens are involved, the government of those countries pay attention.
COSTELLO: And what would you like - even after this incident, I mean internationally, the eyes of the world are going to be on this. I mean what would you like to say about Mumbai and your country to the rest of the world?
VARMA: I would like to say we are just as affected by terrorism as anyone else is. There's a perception in the west that the war on terror is all about America and the terrorism. The fact is that we've had more thousands of people die over the years from terrorist activities than died in 9/11 and we've been victims of terrorism for more than a couple of decades now.
It's a massive issue and we all really have to fight this together. And what is particularly heartening is that President-elect Obama has said during his campaign that you know you need to take the focus off Iraq and focus on Pakistan because Pakistan really is part of the problem, not part of the solution. And we hope that you know this incident will bring that, once again, to the focus.
COSTELLO: Amit Varma, thank you for joining us this morning. And we're glad you're safe.
VARMA: My pleasure. Thank you.
COSTELLO: Thank you.
This just in too, we're hearing President Bush has spoken with India's prime Minister. We'll take you live to the White House next. It's 39 minutes past -
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JOHNS: President Bush is monitoring the crisis in India, as it unfolds. Brianna Keilar is live at the White House.
KEILAR: Hi there, Joe. We just learned that President Bush spoke this morning with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the phone. According to White House Press Secretary Dana Perino, he expressed condolences to the victims of the terror attacks in Mumbai, India and solidarity with the people of India. She went on to say the president offered support and assistance to the government of India, as it works to restore order, provide safety to its people and comfort to the victims and their families and investigate these despicable acts. Of course, it's very much a quickly changing situation there on the ground in Mumbai.
And as my colleague Zain Verjee, over at the State Department has reported, the State Department saying that at least three Americans have been injured. We don't know at this point how perhaps that may change American involvement. But as I said, that's because of the quickly changing situation. As I said, President Bush is at Camp David celebrating or he was planning on celebrating the Thanksgiving holiday there with his family. He is, though, working on this holiday, receiving regular updates obviously responding to the situation. And I should also tell you the White House had a bit of a meeting last night, members of the National Security Council, the president's top national security advisers convening with counter terrorism officials, intelligence officials as well as officials from the State Department and the Department of Defense.
So you can see the White House here saying they very much have an eye on what's go on with this very quickly developing situation. Joe.
JOHNS: I would imagine Brianna there's also a duty there at the White House to try to keep Barack Obama and his team in the loop?
KEILAR: No. That's something that we've been hearing from my colleague, Ed Henry, who is in Chicago with the transition government, that there is -- there is cooperation, there is communication between the State Department and Barack Obama. But obviously, it is this administration which is in power, which is dealing with the situation, and the face of the U.S. response to the situation, Joe.
JOHNS: It might be a little unusual. Because you also have a number of officials who are going to be named to this national security team on the Barack Obama side and presumably those people wouldn't have the security clearances to get all of what the United States government knows.
KEILAR: No, and that's something that it's a bit of speculation. But as we've been reporting, some of those - what presumably could be people who are going to be appointed to these positions, they're not in a place obviously to receive the type of briefings that President- elect Barack Obama would be receiving.
JOHNS: Great. Brianna, thanks so much, at the White House. President Bush again is at Camp David right now. Carol.
COSTELLO: The Mumbai attackers were reportedly hunting for westerners. We'll look at the possible connection between the attack and the United States. It's 44 minutes past the hour.
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COSTELLO: One of several, new, loud explosions heard this morning at the Taj Hotel in Mumbai, India, forcing our reporter, Sara, and others to hit the deck. Police say actually, it's unclear if hostages are still being held inside that hotel. Sara Sidner is reporting that the siege at the Taj is pretty much over and we understand down the way at the Oberoi Hotel, at least 10 to 15 hostages have been released, apparently unharmed. Of course, police are still patrolling those areas and probably are still inside both of those hotels. But as far as we understand the situation has died down now, and I mean that in a good way. Now there are reports that the coordinated attacks of ten different locations in Mumbai targeted American and British citizens and it's raising questions about a link to the United States. CNN's Kelli Arena is following that part of the story. She's live in Washington for us. Good morning.
KELLI ARENA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. Counter terrorism experts are paying very close attention because there are several things that stand out about this attack. I mean, first of all you have the scale and the coordination, it's like unlike anything that we have seen in the region. The terrorists were, as you said, specifically after westerners. In the past Indian militant groups were mostly trying to cause hostilities between Muslims and Hindus and the terrorists also went after targets that would affect the country's economy, namely, the tourism industry. So does this sound familiar? Well it's a page out of the Al Qaeda play book and there are lots of questions about the group that claims responsibility for these attacks which calls itself Deccan Mujahideen. No one is sure of its makeup or more importantly, its associations, Carol.
COSTELLO: I know because last night a lot of people were say, it's a link to Al Qaeda. But this morning people are not so sure. What most assuredly did happen though is this group had some kind of outside help, right?
ARENA: Yes, I mean U.S. officials tell me that it is generally believed that this group, you know in order to pull off what it did, had to have some sort of outside assistance. Investigators are looking into whether a group that we've heard about, more commonly known as (inaudible) more commonly know as L.E.T. was involved at all. That's a group that originated in Pakistan. It does have a long, violent history in the region and it does have ties to Al Qaeda. So that is at least one investigative route that's being looked at.
COSTELLO: And you know, since westerners were targeted in India, is there any indication that the U.S. is at risk because of all of this or because of the transition of power going on right now in Washington or the holiday season?
ARENA: Well, you know, Carol, this is a game changer. The attack dramatically increases the threat to western targets in India, in the future. So that is a complete change in operations there. There's no indication that this plot extends to U.S. soil. I mean, so far we have word of some U.S. injuries but no U.S. deaths. The FBI is not on the ground in Mumbai. It has not yet been asked to help with this investigation. Of course, it cannot go in unless it is asked. The threat level here in the United States has not been raised. I mean that's all good news.
Unfortunately, you know, we got some bad news, too. I mean just yesterday there was an FBI bulletin that went out warning about possible terror attacks against New York subways and rail systems. I mean that report was unsubstantiated but we did see an increase in security both in New York City and in Washington, D.C., as a result of that. Yes, the U.S. and Americans remain a target. The target of several extremist group, that has not changed.
COSTELLO: Yes. I think we're all used to that, right now, right? I mean, you know, there were armed security personnel at Penn Station here in New York City, and just I went, there they are again. I don't know. It's sad.
ARENA: It's becoming a holiday tradition, isn't?
COSTELLO: Happy Thanksgiving. I don't mean to laugh but you have to. ARENA: It is. It's terrible. It is a terrible thing. But you know what can you do except as the official say you know remain vigilant, report suspicious activity and go about your life.
COSTELLO: We'll do. Kelli Arena, live from Washington. Thank you.
JOHNS: Resetting the scene just a bit, we know from reporting within the last hour that the Taj Mahal Hotel is appearing as if it is secure, at least according to our reporter on the ground there, Sara Sidner. Now, we're going to go over to the Oberoi Hotel and CNN producer Phil O'Sullivan who is on the phone as we speak. And we wanted to try to check in with you Phil and get a sense from your perspective, are you getting the all-clear sign or anything that sounds like that from the officials?
VOICE OF PHIL O'SULLIVAN, CNN PRODUCER: Not at all, Joe. Not at this stage. We did have some quite good news early on. IBN showed ten hostages actually walking out the front door of the hotel here at the Oberoi. That was about an hour ago. But you can still see from where I am at the moment there is a lot of military still lingering around. And they still look like they're going through this hotel and just about 15 minutes ago, there was a very loud explosion coming from right - it sounded like right within the Oberoi Hotel. These explosions have been happening throughout the day. And a couple of hours ago they were also joined by very sustained period of what sounded like machine gunfire out of the front of the hotel initially. A lot of people moved around the back of the hotel to get away from the gunfire. The gunfire started out there as well. We're in a situation where a very top official in the Maharas state government, Mumbai is the capital for the Maharas, they expect the situation here at the Oberoi Hotel to be over and done with tonight. But at this stage, we're still hearing loud explosions. We've only seen three hostages walk from the hotel. It's a long time. But I spoke to one military, how many hostages still are in the he had no idea. This is the whole problem. Even the hotel itself still do not have any idea how many people are still in the hotel and how many people in hotel might be gunmen.
JOHNS: And while we're sort of asking questions about numbers here, do you have any sense as to any casualty count, perhaps there at the hotel?
O'SULLIVAN: Not at all, Joe. I think the Taj Hotel, it's the same situation there at well. No numbers have been given out because the military still hasn't secured either hotel and been able to go completely through and make a count. I spoke to a friend who was in the Taj Hotel last night, she said when she was escaping from the hotel - I haven't been able to speak to anybody out of the Oberoi. At this point, it's way too premature to guess. They have this lack of knowledge about numbers, which is a real problem for the military who are trying to clean up the hotels trying to clean up floor by floor, not only how many hostages to be concerned about and how many gunmen.
JOHNS: Right. It would be then very difficult for you to extrapolate and talk about some of the other locations around the city because apparently 10 total locations had problems with people with guns and grenades and so on. But you wouldn't be able to say whether any of the other locations are completely secure or give me a number on that either, would you?
O'SULLIVAN: No. I mean, I'm joined here - where I'm standing, there's a lot of overseas journalists, Indian journalists. They've come to hear about the new explosion in this case and the explosion in the hospital. These explosion and the attacks have been going on for a very long time now. They're coming up for nearly 22 hours this has been going on. Explosions -
JOHNS: All right. Phil, thanks so much. Stay safe out there. Thanks for telling us what you know. And what you don't know. I suppose when you look at the situation and look back at the other hotel you can come to the conclusion that, when you see the military personnel start walking out, then you know it's over.
And at any rate, if you need information about Americans in Mumbai, the state department has set up an information hot line. That telephone number is 800-407-4747. You see it there on the screen right now.
Explosions, gunfire, smoke, a series of coordinated terror attacks across Mumbai, India. The latest developments. It is 56 minutes past the hour.
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JOHNS: I want to update that state department telephone number that you're supposed to call if you need to check on loved ones in Mumbai, in India. That number is 888-407-4747. There we have it on the screen now. We originally had something else.
COSTELLO: You had a mental block or something.
JOHNS: No, it was a graphics!
COSTELLO: It was a graphic. Hey, thanks so much for joining us on this AMERICAN MORNING. Happy Thanksgiving.
