Bombers Strike Bombay at Rush Hour

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Deadly Blasts Hit Bombay Trains
At least 140 people were killed and close to 350 injured in a series of coordinated bomb blasts that rocked the commuter rail network in Bombay, India's financial capital.

In a statement, President Bush said the United States stands with India in the war on terrorism. "Such acts only strengthen the resolve of the international community to stand united against terrorism and to declare unequivocally that there is no justification for the vicious murder of innocent people," he said.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said in a statement that his agency and other federal agencies were closely monitoring the Bombay bombings: "At this time, there is no specific or credible intelligence suggesting an imminent threat to the homeland or our transit systems. There are no plans to raise the nation's threat level as a result of this atrocious act. We will work with individual transit agencies that may choose to increase their vigilance, as a matter of prudence, at this time."

Bombay has experienced other terrorist attacks in recent years. In 1993, more than a dozen bombs exploded in Bombay, killing 257 people and injuring hundreds. In March 2003, a bomb killed 10 people on a passenger train. In August of that year, two taxis packed with explosives blew up near a busy city market, killing 52 and wounding more than 100.

Those attacks were blamed on indigenous Islamic terrorists and followed large-scale sectarian violence between the Hindu and Muslim communities. Indian investigators have also been looking into a possible link between those blasts and a wider ring of Islamic terrorism around the world.

India has often accused Pakistan of training and supporting Muslim radicals, especially in the Kashmir region, a charge Pakistan has denied. In 2001 India blamed Pakistan for an armed attack on Parliament in New Delhi, and the two nuclear-armed neighbors came to the brink of war. They have since initiated a peace process aimed at resolving their competing claims over Kashmir.

Kashmir has been split between India and Pakistan since shortly after the two countries won independence from Britain in 1947, but both still claim it in full. India and Pakistan have fought three wars since the subcontinent was partitioned after independence, two of those over Kashmir.

On Tuesday, the Pakistani Foreign Ministry strongly condemned the Bombay attacks and Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, offered condolences over the loss of life, the Associated Press reported.

Staff writers Robin Wright and Spencer S. Hsu in Washington contributed to this report.