Commandos stormed a Jewish centre and a luxury hotel in Mumbai yesterday to retake them from Islamist militants on the third day of attacks on the Indian financial capital in which at least 130 people have died.
Elite troops slid down ropes from helicopters to breach the Jewish centre, killing two gunmen but failing to save the lives of five hostages, including a New York-based rabbi and his wife.
The commandos also cleared the Trident-Oberoi hotel and freed 143 hostages, including foreign tourists and businessmen who emerged with harrowing stories of the bloodshed inside. Two gunmen were killed.
But at least one gunman was still holed up in the Taj Mahal Palace hotel. Explosions and gunfire erupted regularly as he dodged the commandos through a maze of corridors and rooms.
The militants' action has struck at the heart of the freewheeling city, engine room of an economic boom that has made India a favourite emerging market. It is also home to the Bollywood film industry, the epitome of glamour in a country still blighted with widespread poverty.
The attackers have not precisely spelled out the reasons and aims for the assault. But it has raised new tension between India and old foe Pakistan.
A small army of young men armed with rifles and grenades, some of whom arrived by sea, had fanned out across Mumbai on Wednesday night to attack sites popular with tourists and business executives.
The seizure of the Jewish centre ended just before dusk yesterday when commandos slid down ropes onto the roof from helicopters and blew a hole in the outer wall.
"The operation has been successful," force commander Jyoti Krishna Dutt told reporters afterwards.
"On the second floor, we found three bodies of hostages. They had been killed long before. We found two terrorists on the fourth floor and neutralised them. We also found two bodies of hostages there," he said.
One soldier was killed.
The dead hostages included Rabbi Gavriel and Rivka Holtzberg, the Brooklyn-based directors of Chabad-Lubavitch of Mumbai, the Chabad's New York headquarters said.
Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, speaking in Jerusalem, said: "The fact that the assault happened at a Chabad House symbolises more than anything the fact that this assault targeted Jews, Israelis.
"When they attacked the hotels, they looked for those guests who had American, British, Israeli citizenship. In other words, it looks like there was a deliberate intent here."
At the Trident-Oberoi Hotel, commandos killed two militants and freed 143 guests earlier in the day.
Foreigners and Indians, some dragging their suitcases, trickled out of the five-star hotel after their ordeal ended. One hotel staff member held a baby in his arms.
Police said 24 bodies had been found inside the Taj hotel.
But one militant, thought to be wounded, remained inside.
"He is moving in two floors. There is a dance floor area where apparently he has cut off all the lights," Lieutenant-General N. Thamburaj told reporters.
It was possible that he had two hostages with him, he said.
The head of an elite commando unit, his face masked by a black scarf and sunglasses, said he had seen 50 bodies in the Taj, including 12 to 15 in one room.
Mumbai police chief Hasan Gafoor put the death toll from the attacks at 130. Some 284 people have been wounded.
At least 15 foreigners, including three Germans, three Americans, one Australian, a Briton, one Canadian, two French, an Italian, a Japanese, a Singaporean and a Thai, were among the dead, according to various governments.
Fear was palpable throughout the city of 18 million people.
"When you have a terrorist shooting down people in stations and on roads, how can anyone feel safe anymore?" said shopkeeper Pankaj Angre.