After three days, the siege of the Mumbai Taj Mahal hotel is over, says police. Indian commandos wiped out the last of the gunmen on Saturday, and put an end to a the nightmare started by Islamic militants on the country’s financial and entertainment capital. The ordeal left 195 people dead, 22 of them foreigners.

The siege manifested as a series of simultaneous attacks starting on Wednesday. The militants, split into groups, attacked several targets throughout the city, including a hospital and the main railway station.

The last commando attack initiated right after dawn, with a charge of the remaining militants who had held hundreds of law enforcement personnel back for 60 hours.

One of the targets stormed by commandos on Friday was a Jewish centre where two gunmen were shot dead. Six dead Israeli hostages were found, including a New York rabbi and his wife, who were killed as the commando force brought to bear. The Oberoi/Trident luxury hotel was also hit, and subsequently cleared of militants late Friday. Multiple guests were found alive, as well as 24 bodies.

Survivors’ accounts were gruesome. Many hid in darkness for hours, barricaded in rooms or hidden under beds, inside wardrobes and bathrooms.

''They were the kind of people with no remorse. Anybody and whomsoever came in front of them they fired at,'' an Indian commando said of the young attackers.

According to authorities, ten militants carried out the attacks, with nine of them killed and one captured. Their identity is currently unclear. Some initial reports indicated Pakistan, but later information pegs them as Pakistani-born but raised in Britain.

Indian officials have attributed the attacks to the Lashkar-e-Taiba group, which is based in Pakistan. They’re known for a deadly assault on the parliament of India in 2001, an act which almost pushed India and Pakistan to another war.

The Pakistani government denies any and all allegations that it had anything with the attacks and offered to help with the investigations, while warning India not to get caught up into a dangerous “blame game.” Indeed, another war between the two countries is certainly not necessary after the three that have already been fought between them since they both gained independence from Britain in 1947.

Back in the U.S. President-elect Barack Obama said that he was closely monitoring the situation in India.

"These terrorists who targeted innocent civilians will not defeat India's great democracy, nor shake the will of a global coalition to defeat them," he said in a statement.

The attackers had been no amateurs, coming well prepared, carrying large bags of ammunition (one backpack found held 400 rounds), as well as a sizeable supply of almonds to keep up their energy during the long siege.

India has been shaken repeatedly by terror attacks blamed on Muslim militants in recent years, but most were bombings striking crowded places: markets, street corners, parks. Mumbai — one of the most highly populated cities in the world with some 18 million people — was hit by a series of bombings in July 2006 that killed 187 people.