Indian Commandos use Air Assault to Free Mumbai Jewish Center Hostages

MUMBAI, India — Indian commandos staged a dramatic helicopter raid and battled pockets of militants on Friday as security forces tried to end the bloody assault by terrorists on Mumbai, the financial and entertainment capital of India. The police said the death toll reached 143 with the discovery of 24 bodies in the luxury Oberoi hotel.

Commandos slid down ropes from a hovering Army helicopter Friday morning as they stormed a Jewish center that had been seized. The blue-uniformed troopers landed on the roof and soon made their way inside Nariman House, home to the Orthodox Jewish group Chabad-Lubavitch.

A gun battle was raging inside the building, with several explosions and heavy firing throughout the day , but there was no word on the fate of hostages assumed to be held there.

Fighting broke out early Friday between government soldiers in a helicopter and gunmen holed up inside a Jewish center where two or three gunmen were believed to be remaining.

The helicopter dropped off seven or eight soldiers onto the roof of the Chabad house, and then moved away from the line of fire, CNN sister station CNN-IBN reported.

The operation followed after grenades had been tossed from inside the structure toward anyone approaching the building -- three such explosions occurred in four hours.

But movement appeared imminent shortly before dawn, when several jeeploads of police, firetrucks and at least one ambulance pulled up to the five-story structure.

The fighting at Chabad house comes as Indian security forces appear to be gaining control of two Mumbai five-star hotels attacked by gunmen in a wave of violence that has lasted more than 24 hours and killed at least 125 people.

Updates on the bombings and attacks in India's financial capital Mumbai on November 26, 2008.

A coordinated series of attacks took place across Mumbai - in the crowded Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST) railway station; two five-star hotels, the Oberoi Trident and Taj Mahal Palace & Tower; Leopold's, a popular tourist restaurant; and the police headquarters in South Mumbai.

Reports from the attack zone say that the hotel hostages were liberated and the terrorists "neutralized" late Thursday. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh vowed to catch those responsible and stated that "existing laws will be tightened to ensure there are no loopholes available to terrorists to escape the clutches of the law."

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