Deadly intent of Mumbai gunmen caught in recorded phone-calls

Chilling tapes of the Mumbai massacre gunmen calmly discussing killing their hostages over the phone were released today.

India revealed recordings it had made of the terrorists contacting their “handlers” via mobile phones in the middle of the raid.

One gunman says: “We have three foreigners, including women.”

The response is brutally simple: “Kill them.” Gunshots then rang out inside the Mumbai hotel, followed by cheering that could be heard over the phone.

India said the transcripts were part of a dossier of evidence handed to Pakistan this week that it says proves the attack was launched from across the border.

The transcripts were translated into English by Indian authorities and obtained by the newspaper The Hindu.

They show that the 10 gunmen who carried out the attacks were in close contact with their handlers throughout the siege. India says those directing the attacks that left 164 dead were senior leaders of Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistan-based militant group.

The handlers told a team of gunmen who had seized a Jewish centre to shoot hostages if necessary.

“If you are still threatened, then don’t saddle yourself with the burden of the hostages. Immediately kill them,” he said.

Six Jewish foreigners, including a rabbi and his wife, were killed inside the Jewish centre.

Later in the night, nearly 24 hours after the attacks began, the handlers urged the gunmen to “be strong in the name of Allah”

“Brother, you have to fight. This is a matter of prestige of Islam,” the handler said. “You may feel tired or sleepy, but the commandos of Islam have left everything behind, their mothers, their fathers.”

The gunmen were told several times not to kill any Muslim hostages.

The attackers used several different mobile phones, including those belonging to the hostages. Shortly after the siege began, Indian authorities say they began intercepting calls from inside the hotel. They were also able to pick up calls carried over the internet, which the handlers used to route some calls, according to the dossier.

The siege lasted nearly three days, far longer than security experts said it should have, and, apparently, far longer than the terrorists expected as well. The handlers told the gunmen on November 27 that “the operation has to be concluded tomorrow morning.” But it was 36 more hours before it finished.

Much of the dialogue has a teacher-student feel, and indeed, the surviving gunman has said he and the rest of the group were trained by Lashkar in Pakistan.

“We made a big mistake,” one of the gunman says into the phone in the early hours of the siege.

“What big mistake?”

“When we were getting into the boat ... another boat came. Everyone jumped quickly. In this confusion, the satellite phone of Ismail got left behind.” The investigation shows the gunmen entered Mumbai, which sits on the Arabian sea, by a rubber dinghy.

The attacks against the Mumbai targets were covered non-stop by news channels around the world, and the handlers used TV reports to guide the gunmen, the dossier says. The handlers warned when commandos abseiled down to the Jewish centre from helicopters.

The dossier included photographs of dozens of items recovered in the attacks, including GPS units, mobile phones, guns, and explosives, as well as data gleaned from satellite phones, and details from the interrogation of the lone surviving gunman.

It also had pictures of more mundane items India calls incriminating because they were made in Pakistan, including pickles, detergent, a match box, tissue paper, a Mountain Dew bottle, shaving cream and a towel.

But the strongest – and most chilling – evidence that the gunmen were not acting alone came from the phone transcripts.

“Keep your phone switched on,” a handler said in the midst of the siege, “so that we can hear the gunfire.