We visited the site where the terrorists sailed in from.

Check it out in the video below:

Guards outside of the Taj Hotel

The commando emerged from The Taj Hotel tired, sweaty and unshaven.  A white surgical mask hung below his chin.  He seemed completely drained. The three-day standoff had just ended, but night had fallen before the commandos began to leave the compound.

He explained that there were still 150 bodies inside The Taj Hotel on Saturday night — most shots were by AK-47 rounds. He told us, “They were all over the hotel — on the floors, in the kitchen, in the bedrooms, just scattered throughout.”

I asked him: “What was the most difficult moment during the standoff?”

He paused for a moment and said, “The fact that they didn’t even spare the women or children.”

The commando walked us through the final hours.  “It was 4 a.m. Saturday morning and suddenly we heard two massive explosions,” he said. “Then loud gunfire.  Then another explosion.  All of them coming from inside the Taj.”  The leader of the Indian commando unit had announced several hours before that the operation was nearing its final hours.  “The lights went off in the hotel,” he told us. “Then some lights started blinking.  It appeared as though someone was sending a message.  But no one knows for sure.”

The commando told us that in the last few hours there were two militants left.  Grenades were thrown to try to knock the terrorists off balance.  Then shots were fired.  The attackers were ultimately killed on the first floor of the hotel.

When I asked why authorities were unable to end the siege earlier, he said: “It was hard to tell how many there were.  The terrorists would keep firing and move around. They had so much ammunition and they really knew their way around the hotels well.”

He said the terror group used “incendiary bombs” — meaning they’d throw grenades at gas canisters. This also means they had access to the hotels early on.  Both hotels — the Taj and the Oberoi — have denied their employees were involved in the attacks.

The commando still looked slightly overwhelmed as he described the attackers’ having a surprising level of sophistication. “They had satellite phones,” he told us. “You wouldn’t believe the amount of ammunition that was used inside. I didn’t realize how advanced terrorists are today.”

Here are some EXCLUSIVE photos from India:

It felt like the Taj Hotel was moments away from exploding.  We stood only 200 feet from it.

At the beginning of the night we heard only a couple of gunshots each hour.

But then came larger explosions.  We were told by Indian police that they were likely stun grenades.  They were lobbed into hotel rooms to startle the terrorists who were still inside the hotel. Reports said as many as five could still be alive.

Indian comandos, the country’s most elite force, then went from room to room to clear the hotel.

Late in the evening the head of the commando unit said the standoff was in its final hours.

By morning it came to a dramatic end.

Indian forces concluded the operation with a burst of gunfire and a volley of grenades.

The Taj still stands majestically — though now with broken windows and a charred facade. Yet we all know its beauty is belied by the gruesome crime scene inside.

It’s electric.

There’s a mix of excitement and anticipation here in the Middle East after Barack Obama won the election this week.  People on both sides of the conflict are eager to see what change the president-elect will bring to the region.

 In Israel they’re buzzing about Obama’s new chief-of-staff, Rahm Emanuel.  The Israeli media were quick to say he’ll be good for Israel.  During the Gulf War he served as a volunteer in northern Israel, rust-proofing brakes for military vehicles near the Lebanon border.

Dr. Benjamin Emanuel, his father, told an Israeli newspaper: “My son isn’t going to the White House to wash the floors.  He’ll be influential and he’ll be pro-Israeli.”

Dr. Emanuel was born in Jerusalem and was part of the Irgun, the Jewish underground that believed in fighting the British, who then ruled Palestine.

Some within diplomatic quarters think that Emanuel may be just what Israel needs in the White House –  someone who understands the Jewish state but who’s also capable of handing out  some tough love.

Rahm in Hebrew means “thunder” (it can also mean high or lofty) and Barack, “lightning.”
 
Come January the White House will have both.  But no one seems to know what this means for the new White House’s foreign policy. 

Will the Obama administration talk to Iran?
Will there be a large scale U.S. troop withdrawal in Iraq?
Will the U.S. talk to Hamas, a group the White House lists as a terrorist organization?
Will the Palestinians finally get statehood?

No one seems to have the answers yet.

But a loyal Fox News viewer from Tel Aviv emailed me this bible passage after my mention on Fox’s Live Desk on Thursday about the White House’s new lightning and thunder team:

Psalm 77:18:
   18 The voice of thy thunder was in the whirlwind; The lightnings lightened the world: The earth trembled and shook.
   19 Thy way was in the sea, And thy paths in the great waters, And thy footsteps were not known.

So we all wait.

Stanley Fischer

Israelis are divided over who should take over for outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, but they’re not divided on who should run the country’s central bank.

Meet Stanley Fischer. He’s the Governor of the Bank of Israel.

He was plucked from Citigroup to come to Israel.  Among other things, he’s managed to help the Israeli shekel gain ground against the dollar and the Euro.  But he also knows Israel isn’t immune from the worldwide credit crisis.  He said “Israel’s economy could also suffer next year.”

And did I mention he was Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s thesis advisor?  Bernanke wrote about the Great Depression as a graduate student at M.I.T.  In my interview, Fischer talks about Bernanke’s thesis and the lessons he learned from studying the Great Depression.  Some of those lessons, he says,  are being applied in today’s markets.

Still, it must be hard for a Wall Street veteran to be so far away from the financial meltdown’s ground zero.  Fischer says he’s still waiting for his invitation to the November 15th global economic summit in Washington.

Check out my interview with Stanley Fischer:

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