The forces of fear have struck in Mumbai, India… coverage in the New York Times…
Update | 8:46 p.m. Wired blogger Noah Shachtman points out that “First-hand accounts of the deadly Mumbai attacks are pouring in on Twitter, Flickr, and other social media.”
Shachtman rounds up links to Twitter accounts which are being updated minute by minute, including one on Mumbai and another called BreakingNewz.
The samples Shachtman quotes — “Hospital update. Shots still being fired. Also Metro cinema next door,” tweets mumbaiattack. “Blood needed at JJ hospital,” adds aeropolowoman, supplying the numbers for the blood bank. — are among the more newsy. What is striking is how Twitter blends together accounts from people who have real, even first-hand information, and notes from people who are watching TV or reading the Web and passing on second or third-hand accounts.
Schachtman also draws our attention to a Google map of the attack sites, which has been created and “a shockingly-current Wikipedia page.”
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November 29, 2008
Armed Teams Sowed Chaos With Precision
By KEITH BRADSHER
MUMBAI, India — As Prasan Dhanur prepared his 13-foot boat on Wednesday evening for a hard night of fishing, he saw something strange.
A black inflatable lifeboat equipped with a brand new Yamaha outboard motor threaded its way among the small, wooden fishing boats at anchor and pulled up to the slum’s concrete pier.
Ten men, all apparently in their early 20s, jumped out. They stripped off orange windbreakers to reveal T-shirts and blue jeans. Then they began hoisting large, heavy backpacks out of the boat and onto their shoulders, each taking care to claim the pack assigned to him.
Mr. Dhanur flipped his boat light toward the men, and Kashinath Patil, a 72-year-old harbor official on duty nearby, asked the men what they were doing.
“I said: ‘Where are you going? What’s in your bags?’ “ Mr. Patil recalled. “They said: ‘We don’t want any attention. Don’t bother us.’ “
Thus began a crucial phase of one of the deadliest terrorist assaults in Indian history, one that seemed from the start to be coordinated meticulously to cause maximum fear and chaos.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/29/world/asia/29tock.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=print
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