'War level' security in India after Mumbai attacks

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MUMBAI, Nov 30 (agencies): India will increase security in the country and on its borders to a "war level" in the wake of the deadly attacks in Mumbai that killed nearly 200 people, a government minister said Sunday.
"Our intelligence will be increased to a war level, we are asking the state governments to increase security to a war level," Sriprakash Jaiswal, India's minister of state for home affairs, told Reuters in an interview.
India said Sunday it had proof of a Pakistani link to the Mumbai attacks, while officials in Islamabad said it would move troops to the Indian border if tensions between the nuclear-armed rivals spilled over.
"They can say what they want, but we have no doubt that the terrorists had come from Pakistan," Jaiswal said.
India has already boosted coastal security with the Indian Navy and the coast guard carrying out coordination patrols.
The Mumbai attackers are said to have come to the city by sea from the Pakistani port of Karachi, according to security officials.
They have said they were from the Lashkar-e-Taiba a Pakistan-based group that has been blamed for previous attacks in India.
"We have evidence of their nationalities. We will reveal everything soon," Jaiswal added.
Meanwhile: Tensions between India and Pakistan escalated last night after it was claimed that the only terrorist to have survived three days of deadly battles in Mumbai was from Pakistan, and that his nine fellow Islamist militants were either from that country or had been trained there, according to Guardian Co. UK.
The claims about responsibility for the attack, in which almost 200 people were killed, came from leaked police accounts that gave details of the interrogation of Azam Amir Kasab, 21, said to have been the man pictured at Mumbai's main train station carrying an assault rifle and grenades.
According to the reports, which could not be independently verified, Kasab said that the operation was the responsibility of Lashkar-e-Taiba, a jihadist group based in Pakistan, and its aim was to 'kill as many as possible' in what was intended to be India's 9/11.
The claims were made as Indian special forces ended the violent sieges around Mumbai with the killing of the final three terrorists holding out in the Taj Mahal Palace hotel - where British survivors had walked through rooms strewn with bodies and 'blood and guts' as they were led to safety.
Public anger in India has been mounting following allegations linking Pakistan to the attacks. They include:
However, despite initial claims, it became increasingly certain that there was no involvement of British-based fundamentalists. Police forces across the UK denied they were investigating named individuals and Gordon Brown said there was no evidence linking any of the terrorist to the UK.
The escalating war of words between India and Pakistan has set alarm bells ringing in the United States, where President Bush convened an emergency meeting with senior security officials. President-elect Barack Obama, who has said that reconciliation between the nuclear-armed neighbours is essential to stabilise Afghanistan and defeat al-Qaeda, called Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Friday night to offer condolences.
The cold-blooded intent of the militants has shaken India. Officials said just 10 gunmen, with enough arms and ammunition 'to kill 5,000 people', had attacked the Taj, the Trident-Oberoi, the main railway station, a popular restaurant and a cinema. In the siege of a Jewish centre, which was retaken by security forces on Friday night, the militants had bound and shot five people, including a rabbi and his wife, before they were killed.
Asif Ali Zardari, the President of Pakistan, yesterday appeared on Indian television in an attempt to defuse tensions. 'As President of Pakistan, if any evidence comes of any individual or group in any part of my country, I shall take the swiftest action in the light of evidence and in front of the world,' he said.