MUMBAI, INDIA, AND MADRID — Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Wednesday urged Pakistan and India to cooperate with "resolve and urgency " to catch and prosecute those behind last week's terrorist attacks in Mumbai that killed more than 170 people and wounded hundreds.
Speaking in New Delhi, Rice leaned on Pakistan amid a flurry of reports that a militant group there trained the assailants and planned the efficiently executed operation, which threw India's financial capital into chaos and kept security forces at bay for 60 hours.
"I have said that Pakistan needs to act with resolve and urgency and cooperate fully and transparently," Rice told reporters. "That message has been delivered and will be delivered to Pakistan."
Investigators have found strong evidence pointing to Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistani Islamist network that has been accused of previous attacks in India, including Mumbai train bombings in 2006 that killed about 200 people.
Investigators now believe that as many as 15 people were in a hit team that struck Mumbai and that the gunmen departed from the Pakistani port city of Karachi and talked by cellphone with a Lashkar leader in Pakistan, said a person close to the investigation who requested anonymity because the probe is continuing.
Rice is expected to visit Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, today. While she was in India on Wednesday, Navy Adm. Michael G. Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, met with Pakistani civilian and military officials. The visits were aimed at preventing a further deterioration in relations between the nuclear-armed South Asian nations.
Mullen urged the Pakistanis to "investigate aggressively any and all possible ties to groups based in Pakistan," a U.S. statement said afterward.
Evidence of such ties has mounted, Western anti-terrorism officials said.
The sole suspect in custody and nine assailants who were killed were all Pakistanis, the officials said. And the gunmen used Thuraya satellite phones and cellphones stolen from their victims to make repeated calls to a Lashkar figure, said the person close to the investigation, citing information from British and U.S. investigators.
Numbers called on a recovered satellite phone and the cellphones match and have been traced to Yusuf Muzammil, suspected of being the commander, the source said. Investigators believe that Muzammil gave orders from Lahore, Pakistan, as his fighters battled police and commandos.
