U.S. calls on Pakistan to cooperate in Indian attack investigations

By The Associated Press

BOMBAY, India — Soldiers removed the last bodies from the shattered Taj Mahal hotel Monday as India formally demanded Pakistan take "strong action" against those behind the 60-hour siege that left at least 172 people dead.

The United States, meanwhile, called on Pakistan to fully cooperate with investigations into the attack, which India has blamed on a banned Pakistani militant group. Bombay's most influential Muslim cemetery rejected the corpses of nine of the gunmen and said "Islam does not permit this sort of barbaric crime."

The three-day terror attack was apparently carried out by just 10 gunmen and exposed the weakness of India's security forces. The country's top law enforcement official has resigned and two provincial officials offered to step down on Monday.

An Indian police official said the only gunman captured alive after the attacks claimed to belong to Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistani militant group with links to the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir. The group has long been seen as a creation of the Pakistani intelligence service.

Pakistan must "follow the evidence wherever it leads," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in London. "This is a time for complete, absolute, total transparency and cooperation and that's what we expect."

She said the perpetrators of attacks "must be brought to justice."

Read tomorrow's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for full details.

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