U.S. sending terror investigators to India

updated 6:03 p.m. ET Nov. 28, 2008

WASHINGTON - The government ordered FBI agents Friday to fly to India to investigate the bloody Mumbai attacks that killed at least five Americans. U.S. citizens still in the city were warned their lives remain at risk.

Intelligence officials looked urgently for clues about the identity of the attackers, a crucial unknown as Indian officials charged, without giving details, that “elements in Pakistan” were involved. A tentative rapprochement between the two nuclear-armed rivals could hang in the balance, and a U.S. counterintelligence official cautioned against rushing to judgment on the origins of the militants.

President George W. Bush pledged cooperation with Indian authorities and mourned the deaths of more than 150 people at the hands of gunmen who attacked targets across India’s financial capital starting Wednesday night.

“My administration has been working with the Indian government and the international community as Indian authorities work to ensure the safety of those still under threat,” he said in a statement from the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland. “We will continue to cooperate against these extremists who offer nothing but violence and hopelessness.”

Kashmir rebels?
A U.S. counterterrorism official said it was premature to reach conclusions on who may be responsible for the attacks. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the investigation, said some “signatures of the attack” were consistent with the work of militants who have fought against India in the disputed Kashmir region.

Officials were working out the final details with Indian diplomats Friday for the departure of an FBI team, said U.S. authorities, who also spoke on condition of anonymity because of the delicate nature of the operation. A second group of investigators was on alert to join the first team if necessary.

The investigators aim to learn more about the militants who carried out the lethal strikes on luxury hotels, a train station and an Orthodox Jewish center where five hostages were slain — a rabbi with dual American-Israeli citizenship and his Israeli wife, as well as two other American Israelis and an Israeli woman.

An American and his teenage daughter traveling with a Virginia-based spiritual group were also among those killed during the coordinated attacks.

“Americans are still at risk on the ground” in Mumbai on Friday, the State Department said Friday, warning citizens not to travel to the stricken city at least through the weekend.

U.S. officials were checking with Indian authorities and hospitals to learn more about the extent of casualties.

AP This undated photo provided by Chabad.org shows Rabbi Gavriel Noach Holtzberg and his wife, Rivkah.

In New York, the Chabad-Lubavitch movement confirmed Friday that Rabbi Gavriel Noach Holtzberg and his wife, Rivkah, were among those killed in the terrorist assault on the ultraconservative group’s Mumbai headquarters.

A spokeswoman for a meditation group in Virginia said two Americans traveling with the organization in Mumbai also were killed. Bobbie Garvey, speaking for the Synchronicity Foundation, based in Faber, Va., identified the two slain members as Alan Scherr, 58, and his 13-year-old daughter, Naomi.

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