Mumbai Attackers "White Foreigners," "Neatly Dressed" with "Blonde" and "Punkish" Hair

One police officer who encountered the gunmen as they entered the Jewish centre told the Guardian the attackers were "white", although this could mean they were paler-skinned Indians from the country's north. (Or it could mean they were actually white, as the police officer himself said. - IL)

"I went into the building late last night," he said. "I got a shock because they were white. I was expecting them to look like us. They fired three shots. I fired 10 back."

Cafe attack

Not far across town, Judith Rosta, a German teacher from Vienna, had completed a shoot for a music video for two Indian singers and was walking past the market at Colaba, the hip, touristy hub of posh south Mumbai, with her Russian girlfriend, Valentina.

She says she was buying papayas when she noticed three men on a motorcycle stopping on the road and taking out "big guns".

"They wore white jeans and T-shirts. They were shouting, getting agitated and waved their guns around.

"I dropped my shopping and began walking away towards my hotel. Minutes later, a friend called up saying that there had been a bloody incident of firing in the area," she says.

Leopold Cafe owner Farzed Jehani: 'A grenade was thrown in to the restaurant'

Hours after the shooting at the Leopold Cafe, a cult city cafe and a favourite hangout of foreigners and locals alike, the place smelt of stale beer and bleaching powder.

Broken crockery from a market stall lay strewn on the sidewalk. Fresh blood stains on the bullet-pocked wall were mixed with the old betel- leaf spit stains.

Locals say the orgy of killings in Mumbai began here. Three men walked into the cafe, drank beer, settled their bills and walked out. Then they fished out guns from their bags and began firing.

Gaffar Abdul Amir, an Iraqi tourist from Baghdad, says he saw at least two men who started the firing outside the Leopold Cafe.

He was returning to his hotel from the seaside with a friend when he saw two men carrying bags and brandishing AK-47s walking in front of them, shooting.

"They did not look Indian, they looked foreign. One of them, I thought, had blonde hair. The other had a punkish hairstyle. They were neatly dressed," says Mr Amir.

As the two girls fell near the cafe, he saw the two men quickening their steps towards the Taj Mahal hotel further up the road.

A few minutes later, gunfire was heard from the hotel, and much later, Mr Amir heard that gunmen had taken guests hostage.