WASHINGTON: President-elect Barack Obama joined in the global condemnation of grenade and gun assaults in India’s financial hub of Mumbai, the third major terrorist attack targeting foreigners in South Asian nations this year.
The US will work “with India and nations around the world to root out and destroy terrorist networks,” Obama’s transition team said in a statement. Gunmen on Wednesday raided Mumbai’s Taj Mahal Palace and Tower Hotel and the Oberoi Trident and carried out attacks across the city. The violence in Mumbai came two months after a suicide bombing on the Marriott Hotel in Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad, killed 40 people and a January attack on the luxury Serena Hotel in the Afghan capital, Kabul, killed eight.
Aides to Obama said he was receiving regular updates on the terror attacks, and had established a special group to interact with the State Department’s Operations Center and the Director of National Intelligence in order to provide the president-elect with updates on the attacks in Mumbai. He also has called Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice several times for updates and status reports on the situation in Mumbai.
Obama “strongly condemns the attacks, and his thoughts and prayers are with the victims, their families, and the people of India,” Brooke Anderson, the Obama transition team’s chief national security spokesperson, said in a statement. “These coordinated attacks on innocent civilians demonstrate the grave and urgent threat of terrorism,” he said.
He also called Ronen Sen, the Indian ambassador to the United States, to say that his thoughts and prayers were with those affected by the attacks. Obama also told Sen that “there is just one president at a time.”
The Bush administration issued a statement that read, in part, the US “stands ready to help the Indian government” and is continuing to monitor the situation, including the safety and security of its citizens.
The White House National Security Council convened after the attacks with officials from counterterrorism and intelligence agencies as well as the State and Defense Departments.
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the attacks “reminded us that there remain dark forces in the world that think killing innocents is a way to advance an agenda.”
Bloomberg put the city’s underground Metro system on high alert following the terrorist attacks in Mumbai. The decision to put the underground Metro system on high alert was taken after New York received reports of potential terrorism threat from a recently detained terror suspect. Millions of people use the New York Metro system daily.
“Just today, we dealt with an unsubstantiated report of potential terrorism here in New York. This report led the New York Police Department to take precautionary steps to protect our transit system, and we will always do whatever is necessary to keep our city safe,” Bloomberg said in a statement.
A day before the Mumbai attack, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) had warned that there is a “possible but uncorroborated” Al -Qaeda threat against the New York transportation system.
