Mumbai attack: British men 'among the terrorists'

by Dave Keating | November 28, 2008 at 05:17 am

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When the Indian prime minister blamed "foreign nationals" for the Mumbai terrorist attack, he was likely alluding to Paistanis. But though it appears more and more likely that the terrorists were trained and received funding in Paistan, their nationalities were varied. It has been discovered that two of the terrorsts had British citizenship. They were born in the UK, of Pakistani origin.

Two British-born Pakistanis were among eight gunmen seized by Indian commandos who stormed buildings to free hostages, Vilasrao Deshmukh, the chief minister of Mumbai, reportedly said.

The Foreign Office earlier said it was investigating reports on NDTV, a local television news channel, that the terrorists - who swarmed luxury hotels and other tourist sites in the city - included "British citizens of Pakistani origin".

The development came as Gordon Brown called for international co-ordination to combat terrorism in the wake of the attacks. He said: "We have got to look at how international action against terrorism can be improved."

On the claim that Britons could have been among the perpetrators, he said: "I would not want to be drawn into early conclusions about this.

"Obviously when you have terrorists operating in one country, they may be getting support from another country or coming from another country, and it is very important that we strengthen the co-operation between India and Britain in dealing with these instances of terrorist attacks."