India's interior minister quits in wake of attacks

India's interior minister resigned Sunday as anger grew over intelligence failures leading up to the devastating attacks on Mumbai and the government mulled suspending a peace process with Pakistan.

Home Minister Shivraj Patil said he took "moral responsibility" for the assault by heavily-armed Islamic militants, which left at least 172 people dead and transformed parts of Mumbai into a war zone for three days.

India's powerful national security adviser M.K. Narayanan also submitted his resignation, officials said, but it was not clear if it had been accepted.

The Indian government has pointed the finger at "elements in Pakistan ," and security sources say they believe most if not all the highly-trained gunmen were Pakistani.

The future of the nuclear-armed neighbours' peace process now appears in doubt.

"There is a view in the government that India should suspend the peace process... to show that it is not going to take lightly the deadly carnage in Mumbai," official sources told the official Press Trust of India (PTI).

The government, "including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, is very upset as it feels that Pakistan has not kept its promise made at the highest level to end terrorism directed at India," PTI said.

Opening cross-party talks on Sunday, Singh said he intended to boost security, give more funds to anti-terrorism units and set up a federal agency of investigation.

"We have had terrorist attacks before... but this attack was different. It was an attack by highly trained and well-armed terrorists targeting our largest city," Singh said.

"They came with the explicit aim of killing large numbers of innocent civilians, including foreign visitors. They sought to destroy some of the best known symbols of our commercial capital."

Security officials said they believed the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba was behind the extremely well-planned assault, which took thousands of Indian commandos, police and soldiers 60 hours to stop.

Lashkar, which is fighting Indian control of the disputed Kashmir region, was behind a deadly 2001 assault on the Indian parliament that pushed New Delhi and Islamabad to the brink of war.

But Pakistan, which has fought two wars with India over Kashmir, moved quickly to deny any links with the attacks. Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari urged India not to "over-react."

Zardari warned that the militants were "looking for reaction," and pledged prompt action against anyone responsible.

Lashkar, which operated openly in Pakistan until it was outlawed after the September 11, 2001 attacks, has denied responsibility.

Around a dozen militants launched their assault on Wednesday evening when they split into groups and struck targets across Mumbai, including the main railway station and a hospital.

Security forces regained control of the city 60 hours later when they killed the last three gunmen holed up inside the Taj Mahal hotel.

On Friday elite troops had stormed a Jewish centre and killed two gunmen -- but found eight dead Israeli hostages.

Another luxury hotel that was attacked, the Oberoi/Trident, was cleared of militants later in the day, with scores of trapped guests rescued and dozens of bodies found.

The overall toll was at least 172 people dead and nearly 293 wounded.

About 30 foreigners were killed including five Americans, two French, two Australians and two Canadians.

In a telephone call Sunday, President George W. Bush told Singh he had ordered US agencies to devote whatever resources were necessary to help hunt down those behind the attacks, White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said.

Some militants entered Mumbai by boat, while others had arrived a month ago to stockpile arms and explosives and infiltrate the targets.

They had enough ammunition to kill 5,000 people and never issued any demands for the hostages' release, officials said Sunday.

Survivors gave terrifying accounts of the carnage .

British actor Joey Jeetun was caught up in the violence when a restaurant popular with expatriates was attacked.

The 31-year-old, who played a suicide bomber in a British television documentary, said terrorists assumed he was dead because he was covered in other people's blood. He was then detained for 13 hours as a possible suspect.

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