Mumbai Terror Attacks: Rice Calls for 'transparency' From Pakistan

The US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, today called for "total transparency" from Pakistan over the Mumbai terror attacks as an angry India blamed its neighbor for the mass killings.

"I don't want to jump to any conclusions myself on this, but I do think that this is a time for complete, absolute, total transparency and cooperation and that is what we expect [from Pakistan]," Rice told reporters traveling with her to London, Reuters reported.

Rice was scheduled to meet David Miliband, the foreign secretary, later today in London before traveling to India on Wednesday.

The US and UK have been urging restraint as India's government said it had raised security to a "war level" and had obtained definite proof of a Pakistani link to the killings.

Sri Prakash Jaiswal, India's minister of state for home affairs, said last night that the country's "intelligence will be increased to a war level, we are asking the state governments to increase security to a war level". The Press Trust of India, India's official news agency, also reported that the government was considering suspending the four-year-old peace process with its neighbor.

Jaiswal said there was "no doubt that the terrorists had come from Pakistan ... We have evidence of their nationalities. We will reveal everything soon".

A police officer involved in the interrogation of the only attacker captured alive by Indian commandos, named as Ajmal Amir Kasab, a 21-year-old Pakistani, told Reuters the militants had spent months in Pakistan having military-style training. It is believed 10 militants carried out the assault.

India's actions prompted Pakistan to say it would end military operations against Islamist militants on the Afghan border, which are critical to the hunt for al-Qaida-linked militants, due to the "unwanted conflict" with Delhi.

Pakistan's government has condemned the Mumbai assault as a "barbaric act of terrorism" and denied involvement by any "state institutions". But the group named by India, Lashkar-e-Taiba, has longstanding relationships with Pakistan's security establishment.

In an interview published this morning, Pakistan's president, Asif Ali Zardari, appealed to India not to punish his country, warning that "non-state actors" could provoke the nuclear-armed neighbors into conflict.

"Even if the militants are linked to Lashkar-e-Taiba, who do you think we are fighting?" he told the Financial Times.

As many schools and shops opened this morning for the first time since the attacks on Wednesday evening, state government officials said the final siege site to be cleared, the Taj Mahal hotel, had now been completely checked. The death toll has now been put at 172, including 19 foreigners. One Briton was among the dead.

"We were apprehensive about more bodies being found. But this is not likely. All rooms in the Taj have been opened and checked," said a spokesman for Maharashtra's state government.

In India, the government is struggling to contain public anger over the attacks with demonstrators taking to the streets to vent their anger over the inability to stop the killings.

The chief minister of Maharashtra state, Vilasrao Deshmukh, said today he had offered to resign. India's home minister, Shivraj Patil, stepped down yesterday.

India's ruling Congress party, which faces a general election next year, has been attacked by opponents for being soft on terrorism, a potent charge given that India has suffered a major attack every month this year. The government said last night it would urgently upgrade maritime and air security and look to create a federal investigative agency.

The peace process between India and Pakistan 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," the Press Trust of India reported. It quoted sources as saying 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".

Lashkar-e-Taiba, 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.