MUMBAI - THE sole gunman captured in last month's Mumbai attacks had originally intended to seize hostages and outline demands in a series of dramatic calls to the media, according to his confession obtained by The Associated Press.

Mohammed Ajmal Kasab said he and his partner, who massacred dozens of people, had planned a rooftop stand-off, but abandoned the plan because they could not find a suitable building, the statement to police said.

Kasab's seven-page confession, given to police over repeated interrogations, offers new details of the three-day rampage through India's commercial centre that left 164 people, as well as nine of the 10 gunmen, dead. He said the assault, which started on Nov 26, was initially set for Sept 27, though he did not explain why it was delayed.

After reaching Mumbai, Kasab and his partner, Ismail Khan, the group's ringleader, headed to the train station by taxi in the evening. Other reports had identified him as Ajmal Amir Kasab.

'Ismail and myself went to the common toilet, took out the weapons from our sacks, loaded them, came out of the toilet and started firing indiscriminately towards the passengers,' he told police.

The men then searched for a building with a rooftop where they would call a contact named Chacha, whom Kasab identified as Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, the suspected mastermind behind the attacks who has been detained by the Pakistani authorities.

Chacha, which means 'uncle' in Hindi, would supply phone numbers for media outlets and specify their demands.

Taking heavy fire from police, the two had trouble finding a 'suitable building' and stormed a hospital that they mistook for an apartment building.

When they left, a police van pulled up and the two tried to take shelter behind a bush during the shoot-out. Kasab was hit in the hand as Khan returned fire.

The van was carrying top police officials, including the head of the anti-terror squad who was killed.

In the confession, Kasab, 21, describes his conversion from an aspiring street criminal to a loyal soldier for Lashkar-e-Taiba, the terrorist group banned by Pakistan in 2002 and blamed by India for the attacks.

He came to the organisation last year while looking to buy guns to commit robberies after quitting a low-paying job at a catering business. The search led him to several Lashkar 'stalls' at a bazaar in the Pakistani city of Rawalpindi.

Kasab went on to receive rigorous training in weapons handling and other skills, attending at least six Lashkar camps, he said. Lashkar operatives even lectured recruits on Indian security and intelligence agencies, and taught them how to evade pursuing security forces.

He said they were shown 'clippings highlighting the atrocities on Muslims in India', images of Mumbai locations on Google Earth, and film footage of the train station.

'We were instructed to carry out the firing at rush hour in the morning between 7 and 11...and between 7 and 11 in the evening,' he said. The attacks ultimately started at around 9.30pm.

Kasab said Lakhvi, Lashkar's operations chief, recruited him for the Mumbai attack. After Kasab and nine others were picked from among a group of 32 recruits, they headed to Karachi in September and practised travelling on speed boats.

On Nov 23, the group was transported to a ship far out at sea. Shortly after boarding, 'each of us was given a sack containing eight grenades, one AK-47 rifle, 200 cartridges, two magazines and one cellphone for communication'.

The ship's crew, he said, later hijacked an Indian vessel, killing all but one crew member who was temporarily kept alive to guide them into Mumbai's coastal waters.

Police said Kasab, who is facing a criminal case in the attacks, has written to Pakistani officials to request legal help. The letter was forwarded to India's government to relay to Pakistani officials, but it was unclear whether it had been delivered.

ASSOCIATED PRESS