2008 Mumbai attacks
The 2008 Mumbai attacks, also referred to as the 26/11 'attacks', were a series of 12 coordinated terrorist attacks that took place from November 26 to 29 and were carried out by 10 members of Lashkar-e-Taiba, a terrorist organisation. A total of 175 people died, including nine of the attackers, with more than 300 injured.
Eight of the attacks occurred in South Mumbai at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus, the Oberoi Trident, the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower hotel, the Leopold Cafe, the Cama Hospital, the Nariman House, the Metro Cinema, and in a lane behind the Times of India building and St. Xavier's College. In addition to the mass shootings, an explosion occurred at Mazagaon, in Mumbai's port area, and in a taxi at Vile Parle. By the early morning of 28 November, all sites except for the Taj Hotel had been secured by the Mumbai Police and security forces. On 29 November, India's National Security Guards conducted Operation Black Tornado to flush out the remaining terrorists; it culminated in the death of the last remaining terrorists at the Taj Hotel and ended the attacks.
Before his execution in 2012, Ajmal Kasab, the sole surviving attacker captured by the Mumbai Police stated and confessed that the terrorists were members of the Lashkar-e-Taiba and were controlled from Pakistan, corroborating initial claims from the Indian Government. Initially denying the claims, Pakistan later confirmed that the sole surviving perpetrator of the attacks was a Pakistani citizen. The subsequent capture and interrogation of David Headley, a Pakistani-American DEA informer, and Tahawwur Rana, a Canadian citizen of Pakistani origin and a former Pakistan Army Captain, who was Headley's partner, pointed to the involvement of rogue officials of Pakistan Army and ISI in the terrorist attacks, who provided support to the Lashkar-e-Taiba. Furthermore, Headley was also accused of traveling to Denmark to scout the offices of Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, which had published cartoons of Muhammad, and a nearby synagogue. The capture of Zabiuddin Ansari aka Abu Hamza in July 2012, an Indian national radicalised by Lashkar-e-Taiba, provided further clarity to the plot.
On 9 April 2015, the foremost ringleader of the attacks, Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, was released on bail and disappeared; he was arrested again in Lahore on 2 January 2021. In 2018, former Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif questioned the Pakistani government's allowance of those who committed the attacks to cross into India. In 2022, one of the masterminds of the attack, Sajid Majeed Mir —who had earlier been claimed to be dead by the Pakistan Government— was convicted for funding terrorist activities by an anti-terrorism court in Pakistan. Consequently, several masterminds such as LeT founder Hafiz Saeed and Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, were convicted for terror financing in 2021–22, as Pakistan went into an economic crisis after the Financial Action Task Force threatened the Government of Pakistan to be put in the FATF Blacklist for failure to comply on money laundering and financing of terrorism.
As of December 2025, it is one of the deadliest terrorist attacks that took place in Mumbai, as well as across India. Although the casualties were lower when compared to the 2006 Mumbai train bombings, which was also planned by the Lashkar-e-Taiba and that killed 209 and injured more than 700, the 10 terrorists inflicted massive property damage worth over $1 billion by fire, grenade attacks, and gunfire. The attacks strained diplomatic relations between India and Pakistan, and made a huge impact on law enforcement and security officials to deal with such scenarios in the future. The attacks also caused a major political impact on the then ruling government led by the United Progressive Alliance, as the same year, several other cities suffered from terrorism, which were also perpetrated by Pakistani terror groups.
Background
Many terrorist attacks had occurred in Mumbai since the 13 coordinated bomb explosions that killed 257 people on 12 March 1993. The 1993 attacks were carried out as revenge for the earlier Bombay riots, in which many Muslims were killed.On 6 December 2002, a blast in a BEST bus near Ghatkopar station killed two people and injured 28. The bombing occurred on the 10th anniversary of the demolition of the Babri Mosque in Ayodhya. A bicycle bomb exploded near the Vile Parle station in Mumbai, killing one person and injuring 25 on 27 January 2003, a day before the visit of the Prime Minister of India Atal Bihari Vajpayee to the city. On 13 March 2003, a day after the 10th anniversary of the 1993 Bombay bombings, a bomb exploded in a train compartment near the Mulund station, killing 10 people and injuring 70. On 28 July 2003, a blast in a BEST bus in Ghatkopar killed 4 people and injured 32. On 25 August 2003, two bombs exploded in South Mumbai, one near the Gateway of India and the other at Zaveri Bazaar in Kalbadevi. At least 44 people were killed and 150 injured. On 11 July 2006, seven bombs exploded within 11 minutes on the Suburban Railway in Mumbai, killing 209 people, including 22 foreigners and more than 700 injured. According to the Mumbai Police, the bombings were carried out by Lashkar-e-Taiba and Students Islamic Movement of India.
Training
A group of men said to number between 24 and 26 received training in marine warfare at a remote camp in mountainous Muzaffarabad in Pakistan. Part of the training was said to have taken place on the Mangla Dam reservoir in Pakistan.The recruits went through extensive training:
- Psychological: Indoctrination to Islamist jihadi ideas, including imagery of atrocities suffered by Muslims in India and globally.
- Basic combat: Lashkar's basic combat training and methodology course, the Daura Aam
- Advanced training: Selected to undergo advanced combat training at a camp near Mansehra, a course the organisation calls the Daura Khaas. According to an unnamed source at the U.S. Defense Department, this includes advanced weapons and explosives training supervised by former members of the Pakistan Army, along with survival training and further indoctrination.
- Commando training: Finally, an even smaller group was selected for specialised commando tactics training, and marine navigation training was given to the Fedayeen unit that was selected, to target Mumbai.
Attacks
The terrorists first hijacked an Indian fishing boat and killed five people on board. The first events were detailed around 20:00 Indian Standard Time on 26 November, when 10 men in inflatable speedboats came ashore at two locations in Colaba. They reportedly told local Marathi-speaking fishermen who asked them who they were to "mind their own business" before they split up and went in two different ways. The fishermen's subsequent report to the police department received little response and local police failed to act.Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus
The Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus was attacked by two gunmen, Ismail Khan and Ajmal Kasab. Kasab was later caught alive by the police and identified by eyewitnesses. The attacks began around 21:30, when the two men entered the passenger hall and opened fire with AK-47 assault rifles. The attackers killed 58 people and injured 104 others, their assault ending at about 22:45. Security forces and emergency services arrived shortly afterwards. Announcements by a railway announcer, Vishnu Dattaram Zende, alerted passengers to leave the station, which saved many lives. The two gunmen fled the scene and fired at pedestrians and police officers in the streets, killing eight police officers. The attackers passed a police station. Knowing that they were outgunned against the heavily armed terrorists, the police officers at the station, instead of confronting the terrorists, decided to switch off the lights and secure the gates.The attackers then headed towards Cama Hospital with intent to kill patients, but the hospital staff locked all of the patient wards. A team of the Mumbai Anti-Terrorist Squad, led by Police Chief Hemant Karkare, searched the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus and then left in pursuit of Kasab and Khan. Kasab and Khan opened fire on the vehicle in a lane next to the hospital and received return fire in response. Karkare, Vijay Salaskar, Ashok Kamte, and three of their officers were killed. The only survivor, Constable Arun Jadhav, was severely wounded. Kasab and Khan seized the police vehicle but later abandoned it and seized a passenger car instead. They then ran into a police roadblock, which had been set up after Jadhav radioed for help. A gun battle then ensued in which Khan was killed and Kasab was wounded. After a physical struggle, Kasab was arrested. A police officer, Tukaram Omble, was also killed when he tried to disarm Kasab by wrestling his weapon away from him.