The 2008 Mumbai attacks, also referred to as the 26/11 attacks, were a series of 12 coordinated Islamist terrorist attacks that took place from November 26 to 29 and were carried out by 10 members of Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistan-based Islamist terrorist organisation. A total of 175 people died, including nine of the attackers, with more than 300 injured.
Eight of the attacks occurred in South Mumbai at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus, the Oberoi Trident, the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower hotel, the Leopold Cafe, the Cama Hospital, the Nariman House, the Metro Cinema, and in a lane behind the Times of India building and St. Xavier's College. In addition to the mass shootings, an explosion occurred at Mazagaon, in Mumbai's port area, and in a taxi at Vile Parle. By the early morning of 28 November, all sites except for the Taj Hotel had been secured by the Mumbai Police and security forces. On 29 November, India's National Security Guards conducted Operation Black Tornado to flush out the remaining terrorists; it culminated in the death of the last remaining terrorists at the Taj Hotel and ended the attacks.
Before his execution in 2012, Ajmal Kasab, the sole surviving attacker captured by the Mumbai Police stated and confessed that the terrorists were members of the Lashkar-e-Taiba and were controlled from Pakistan, corroborating initial claims from the Indian Government. Initially denying the claims, Pakistan later confirmed that the sole surviving perpetrator of the attacks was a Pakistani citizen. The subsequent capture and interrogation of David Headley, a Pakistani-American DEA informer, and Tahawwur Rana, a Canadian citizen of Pakistani origin and a former Pakistan Army Captain, who was Headley's partner, pointed to the involvement of rogue officials of Pakistan Army and ISI in the terrorist attacks, who provided support to the Lashkar-e-Taiba. Furthermore, Headley was also accused of traveling to Denmark to scout the offices of Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, which had published cartoons of Muhammad, and a nearby synagogue. The capture of Zabiuddin Ansari aka Abu Hamza in July 2012, an Indian national radicalised by Lashkar-e-Taiba, provided further clarity to the plot.
On 9 April 2015, the foremost ringleader of the attacks, Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, was released on bail and disappeared; he was arrested again in Lahore on 2 January 2021. In 2018, former Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif questioned the Pakistani government's allowance of those who committed the attacks to cross into India. In 2022, one of the masterminds of the attack, Sajid Majeed Mir —who had earlier been claimed to be dead by the Pakistan Government— was convicted for funding terrorist activities by an anti-terrorism court in Pakistan. Consequently, several masterminds such as LeT founder Hafiz Saeed and Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, were convicted for terror financing in 2021–22, as Pakistan went into an economic crisis after the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) threatened the Government of Pakistan to be put in the FATF Blacklist for failure to comply on money laundering and financing of terrorism.
As of December 2025, it is one of the deadliest terrorist attacks that took place in Mumbai, as well as across India. Although the casualties were lower when compared to the 2006 Mumbai train bombings, which was also planned by the Lashkar-e-Taiba and that killed 209 and injured more than 700, the 10 terrorists inflicted massive property damage worth over $1 billion by fire, grenade attacks, and gunfire. The attacks strained diplomatic relations between India and Pakistan, and made a huge impact on law enforcement and security officials to deal with such scenarios in the future. The attacks also caused a major political impact on the then ruling government led by the United Progressive Alliance, as the same year, several other cities suffered from Islamic terrorism, which were also perpetrated by Pakistani terror groups.
View More On Wikipedia.org
