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New explosions rock Mumbai hotels

MUMBAI, Nov. 27 (UPI) -- New explosions rocked a pair of Mumbai hotels Thursday as Indian security forces battled to free hostages taken during terrorist attacks, observers said.

A loud blast shook the Oberoi Hotel where scores of special Indian police officers were working to free four to five foreign hostages held on its 19th floor, CNN reported.

And at the nearby Taj Mahal Hotel, where police were going floor to floor to flush out terrorist gunmen, a new explosion was also heard, the broadcaster said. Indian officials said about five gunmen were believed to be hiding in the Taj Mahal Hotel.

Separately, commando units battled gunmen at the Nariman House in the fashionable Colaba area, which is a favorite of Israeli tourists. TV reports said there were eight to 10 Israelis at the location.

As police struggled to get the hotels under control, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told reporters he believed those behind the attacks were based outside the country and probably had "external linkages."

Officials Thursday set the casualties from the attacks at 101 killed and 314 wounded. CNN said at least nine gunmen were killed along with as many as 11 other police officers.

Experts debate India attack al-Qaida link

MUMBAI, Nov. 27 (UPI) -- Terrorism experts say they disagree on whether the Mumbai terrorist attackers are linked to al-Qaida or other outside groups.

Some such as Christine Fair, senior political scientist and a South Asia expert at the RAND Corp., told The New York Times the Mumbai attacks did not fit the patterns usually employed by al-Qaida or Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Kashmir group used by Pakistani intelligence forces to target Indian interests in the disputed territory.

"There's absolutely nothing al-Qaida-like about it," she said of the Mumbai attacks that began Wednesday and continued into Thursday. "Did you see any suicide bombers? And there are no fingerprints of Lashkar. They don't do hostage-taking and they don't do grenades."

One unnamed Indian counterterrorism expert, however, disagreed, telling the newspaper the terrorists could be linked to Lashkar because the attacks seemed designed to torpedo relations between India and Pakistan. Or, the source said, they may be from an outlawed militant Islamic student group.

Sajjan Gohel, a security analyst in London, told the Times, "The fingerprints point to an Islamic al-Qaida-affiliated terrorist group" because attackers targeted "soft, symbolic targets and multiple coordinated attacks aimed to create maximum terror and human carnage and damage the economy."

4 dead, 10 injured in Kabul blast

KABUL, Afghanistan, Nov. 27 (UPI) -- A bomb exploded near the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, Thursday, killing at least four people, an Interior Ministry source told RIA Novosti.

The Russian news agency said at least 10 more people were injured in the blast, which occurred during rush hour outside a state-run printing firm about 220 yards from the embassy.

"A terrorist attacked a NATO convoy," the source said.

The official dismissed media reports that the explosion happened just outside the U.S. compound.

Briton, Spaniard among kidnapped journos

BOSASSO, Somalia, Nov. 27 (UPI) -- Four journalists kidnapped in Somalia included a Briton, a Spanish freelance photographer and two local Somali reporters, an advocacy group said Thursday.

The New York group The Committee to Protect Journalists told CNN the four were seized Wednesday after they left their hotel in Bosasso, a port city in Somalia's semi-autonomous Puntland region.

Tom Rhodes, CPJ's Africa Program coordinator, told the broadcaster, "This underscores what an incredibly dangerous place Somalia has become for both local and foreign journalists."

The kidnappings came as a British coroner ruled in Ipswich, England, that a BBC journalist slain in Somalia in 2005 only agreed to go to Mogadishu because she believed she would lose her job if she didn't.

Peter Dean, coroner for Greater Suffolk, ruled the shooting death of BBC producer Kate Peyton, 39, was an "unlawful death" after hearing the journalist's friends and family tell an inquest Peyton had complained of being pressured by her employer, the Times of London reported.

"She felt that she could not turn this job down," Dean said at the inquest. "If that was not the case, she would not have been in this situation and she would not have died."

Easier lending may take time

WASHINGTON, Nov. 27 (UPI) -- Two new U.S. government programs to kick-start loans for consumers will take time to kick in and do not help borrowers with bad credit, experts said.

The government moved Tuesday to lend $200 billion to investors to buy asset-backed securities based on student loans, auto loans and credit card debt. In addition, the government will buy $500 billion in mortgage backed securities from government-sponsored enterprises the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp. and the Federal National Mortgage Association.

However, "it's not going to be like flipping a light switch," president of the Consumer Bankers Association Joe Belew told Thursday's New York Times. While "anything that can lubricate the market is a good thing," he said, "you're not going to see an avalanche of new loans."

New movement in credit markets will not help homeowners refinance if their home is worth less than their mortgages, nor is it likely to convince banks to overlook bad credit reports, rising in the economic slump, the Times reported.

"At the end of the day, it still comes down not to just a rate discussion, but a discussion about qualifications as well," said Cameron Findlay, chief economist at LendingTree.

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