Nov 27, 2008 10:12 pm US/Central
Nervous Travelers Arrive In Chicago From Mumbai
CHICAGO (CBS) ―
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Air India passenger Anshu Singh arrived at O'Hare Airport Nov. 27 from Mumbai, where terrorists struck at several well-known targets in the city.
CBS
The terrorist siege of Mumbai has moved into a third day. At least 119 people are dead, and more than 200 injured, including Americans. There are fears the death toll could grow.
The search is still on for victims and a U.S. investigative team in on its way to Mumbai Thursday night to try and learn more about this obscure group claiming responsibility and if it has any ties to al Qaeda.
It has been almost 36 hours of horror and chaos in Mumbai. Commandos are still searching for hostages and victims in the terrorists' targets. All day, people have slowly been carried out or have been able to walk out of the besieged buildings, but many are still unaccounted for.
"It was a horrendous sight going down in the stairwell," witness Deepak Datta said. "There's a lot of blood in many, many places."
Police now suspect the gun- and grenade-toting terrorists used inflatable boats to enter India's commercial capital. Some of them were caught on security cameras in Mumbai's train station prowling for victims.
Virginia resident Alan Scherr and his 13-year-old daughter, Naomi Scherr, were in Mumbai with a spiritual group and are missing. American Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife, Rivka, were at the city's Chabad Lubavitch house when it was attacked and their fate is unknown, too, but their 2-year-old son was rescued.
Terrorism experts say this was a well-planned and organized assault, with the gunmen deliberately seeking out westerners.
"These individuals were not suicide bombers," said Sajjan Gohel, director of international security at the Asia-Pacific Foundation. "They were planning to kill as many people as possible and die in a shootout with authorities."
Thursday afternoon, an Air India flight from Mumbai arrived at O'Hare Airport. Passengers say the city was definitely on edge.
"When I entered the city there were a lot of police checkings, especially when you enter the city the police were on alert," said passenger Raj Sonarikar.
Many passengers flew in to Mumbai from elsewhere and didn't hear about the attacks until they were in the airport.
"Personally I was not nervous but I was concerned of so many people being affected… they were showing very, very tragic scenes on the TV repeatedly," passenger Vijay Reddy said.
But others say the horror they left behind stayed with them on the long flight here.
"The fact that my people, our people, they were getting hurt, it still hurts us, it hurts us as well," passenger Anshu Singh said.
Officials have confirmed some Americans were injured in the attacks. Among the confirmed dead are victims from India, Australia, Japan, Great Britain, Germany and Italy, but information is still changing.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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