If your strength is small, don’t carry heavy burdens. If your words are worthless, don’t give advice.

— Chinese Proverb

The bottom floors of the Taj Hotel are on fire, and a gun battle is raging at this minute; the IBNLive.com stream is working well here, on a Mac with Flip4Mac installed.

A song you’ll recognize, gorgeously played by three of the greatest musicians in jazz.

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IBN reports that there are still three terrorists loose in the Taj Hotel, but all the other attack sites are now secured.

Mumbai: India’s financial hub continues to remain under siege.

On Friday night – 51 hours into the war-like operation on terror – the National Security Guard said there are at least three terrorists still holed up inside the hotel.

The NSG are in a close combat with the dogged terrorists at the iconic hotel after securing two other centres taken over by gunmen two nights ago.

Not all bits have equal value.

— Carl Sagan

Boston.com has a collection of high resolution wire service images from Mumbai: Mumbai under attack - The Big Picture. Some of the pictures are graphic, but you have to click to view them.

Late Wednesday night, Mumbai, India found itself the target of a ferocious terrorist attack, and the situation remains unresolved even now, three days later. According to reports, upwards of 60 young men entered Mumbai in small inflatable boats on Wednesday night, carrying bags filled with weapons and ammunition, and spread out to nine locations to begin their attacks. Lobbing grenades and firing their weapons, they entered hotels, a railway station and several other buildings, killing scores and wounding even more. As of this moment, the identity of the attackers has yet to be definitively determined, though there are reports indicating some of the gunmen were Pakistani - at least nine of them have been killed, nine more arrested. As of this writing, there were a reported 151 people killed from 11 different countries - though nearly 100 were Indian. More than 300 injuries have also been reported - those numbers may yet rise as several hostage situations still exist in the city.

Bad news from Mumbai about the hostages at the Chabad center, contradicting earlier reports that they had been freed: ’Five hostages killed at Mumbai Chabad House’.

Israel’s ZAKA rescue service earlier said five hostages and two gunmen were killed inside the center, one of 10 sites in India’s commercial capital that gunmen attacked beginning Wednesday night. The rescue service, which sent a delegation to Mumbai on Thursday, did not identify the victims. ...

Israeli diplomat Haim Choshen told Israeli television by telephone from the scene that the bodies of five hostages were found Friday after Indian security forces stormed the besieged Chabad center in Mumbai.

“Five bodies of hostages have been found inside the Chabad House,” Choshen told Channel 2. “We still don’t know whose bodies.”

Indian authorities are saying that some of the terrorists in Mumbai were British.

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”.

UPDATE at 11/28/08 8:55:18 am:

Some American Muslims are justifying the massacre and refusing to denounce it, and blaming it on either Israel or America.

For example: The Ignored Puzzle Pieces of Knowledge » Mumbai Attacks.

And then there’s this creep, “Yousef al-Khattab,” aka Joseph Cohen.

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