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Five Jewish hostages found dead in Mumbai

MUMBAI, Nov. 28 (UPI) -- Five hostages have been found dead in a Mumbai Orthodox Jewish community center held by Muslim terrorist attackers, an Israeli diplomat says.

Indian police commandos stormed the center Friday in an operation to free it from masked Muslim gunman who occupied the facility as part of a series of coordinated attacks in the Indian financial capital that has killed at least 143 people.

The commando raid was still going on late Friday, with the bodies of five Jewish hostages having been recovered from the facility, including those of Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife, Rivka, Ynetnews.com quoted diplomat Haim Choshen telling Israel's Channel 2.

"Apparently the hostages did not remain alive," officials of the Israeli rescue organization Zaka said in a statement without identifying the hostages or saying how many may have died.

Paramilitary commandos dressed in blue uniforms slid down ropes from helicopters hovering over the building and stormed inside with guns blazing, the International Herald Tribune reported.

Commandos also combed trough the charred Taj Mahal and Oberoi hotels, battling remaining pockets of militants, with police officials saying they discovered 24 bodies inside the Oberoi.

Those killed included six foreigners, at least a dozen police officers and the head of the city's anti-terrorism squad. More than 300 people were wounded in the indiscriminate firings and grenade-type explosions.

The head of the elite commando National Security Group told reporters Friday afternoon two of the remaining terrorists were killed at the Oberoi and that the complex was now under government control.

The commandos also recovered unexploded grenades and AK-47 automatic rifles from the hotel, the Times of India reported, adding at least 148 rescued hostages, many of them foreigners, were seen leaving.

Separately, Mumbai Police Commissioner Hassan Gafoor was quoted as saying all hostages inside the massive century-old, 800-room landmark Taj Mahal Hotel had been evacuated. There had been another gun battle at the hotel after a night of similar battles and constantly raging fires.

Earlier, about 30 bodies were recovered from the Taj, the Times of India reported.

The BBC quoted security forces as saying the militants appeared to be familiar with the layout of the hotel. It said security forces recovered a Mauritius identity card as well as guns and money.

Possible outside links to attackers eyed

MUMBAI, Nov. 28 (UPI) -- The scale and sophistication of the Mumbai terror attacks suggest the perpetrators received training outside the country, counterterrorism experts say.

Although cautioning it was still too soon to make any definitive assessments, experts told The Washington Post Muslim terror groups with links to Pakistan, long active in the disputed Kashmir region, are likely suspects in the Mumbai attacks, in which teams of heavily armed gunmen killed 130 people and wounded hundreds more.

"No indigenous Indian group has this level of capability," Bruce Riedel, a former South Asia analyst for the CIA and National Security Council, told the Post. "The goal is to damage the symbol of India's economic renaissance, undermine investor confidence and provoke an India-Pakistani crisis."

An unnamed U.S. counterterrorism official told the newspaper Lashkar-i-Taiba and Jaish-i-Muhammad, two terror groups based in Kashmir with alleged links to the Pakistan's intelligence services, may be behind the attacks.

That's "the thing people are starting to look at. But I can't caution enough to treat it as a theory, a working assumption. It's still too early for hard and fast" conclusions, he said, adding, "What the Indians have in their favor is that they've got some of these guys."

Man trampled to death in Black Friday rush

NEW YORK, Nov. 28 (UPI) -- A male worker at a New York Wal-Mart was killed Friday when anxious shoppers trampled him in their rush for Black Friday bargains, witnesses say.

Witnesses to the early morning incident in Valley Stream, N.Y., said the unidentified worker had been attempting to hold back a wave of customers after the store opened, only to be knocked down and trampled underfoot, the New York Daily News said.

"He was bum-rushed by 200 people," Jimmy Overby, a co-worker of the man's, said. "They took the doors off the hinges. He was trampled and killed in front of me. They took me down too ... I literally had to fight people off my back."

Police said the incident was being investigated and the body would be analyzed to determine the official cause of death.

Meanwhile, shopper Jessica Keyes said she miscarried after being knocked down by her fellow shoppers at the same Wal-Mart.

She told the Daily News that paramedics informed her she had lost her unborn child from the violent collision.

"There's nothing we can do. The baby is gone," she quoted the paramedics as saying.

Al-Qaida: 9/11 caused financial crisis

LONDON, Nov. 28 (UPI) -- Al-Qaida second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri says the global financial crisis was caused by the United States' war on Muslims and the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Speaking on a new video posted on militant Islamic Web sites Thursday and monitored in London, Zawahiri said the world's financial turmoil stemmed from al-Qaida's 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center, The Daily Telegraph reported.

"This crisis is one of … the series of American economic hemorrhages after the strikes of September 11 … And these … will continue as long as the foolish American policy of wading in Muslim blood continues," the Egyptian cleric says in the video.

Zawahiri also said Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai was weak and that U.S. gains in tamping down violence in Iraq were only temporary, predicting that Sunni Arab Awakening Councils, largely credited with helping to counter al-Qaida's moves in Iraq, would be rejected by the Shiite-dominated government, the Telegraph reported.

He taunted U.S. President George Bush, daring him to invade the group's base and saying, "I challenge you, if you are really a man, to send the entire American army to Pakistan and the tribal regions for it to end up in hell."

'Predatory' credit card lending targeted

WASHINGTON, Nov. 28 (UPI) -- Curbs on predatory credit card lending could be part of the deal for banks accepting low-rate U.S. Treasury loans to prop up their portfolios, analysts say.

Treasury Henry Paulson Jr. announced this week that the government and the Federal Reserve plan to offer such loans to banks to help shore up their shaky portfolios of credit card and other consumer loans. But the bailout will come with significant demands for reform of credit card lending practices that consumer advocates say are deceptive, USA Today reported Friday.

"The credit card industry has built a profit model off of people's mistakes, and that's got to change," Robert Lawless, bankruptcy law professor at the University of Illinois, told the newspaper. "The American people won't want to be co-owners of an industry that uses trickery to make money off the backs of the middle class."

Lawless predicted lending reforms will become a top priority of the incoming administration of U.S. President-elect Barack Obama.

USA Today says its investigation found that banks sharply boosted credit card rates and fees, then enticed consumers to take out home equity loans to pay off the high card balances.