The Indian authorities were also investigating whether some of the attackers may have escaped, blending into Mumbai's 18 million residents, CNN reported on its website yesterday.

'We found bullets with them, hand grenades, bombs,' Mr R. R. Patil, deputy chief minister of Maharashtra state, said at a news conference. 'Based on our investigation, we believe they had planned to kill 5,000 people.' He did not give details.

Around a dozen gunmen had attacked multiple targets across Mumbai last Wednesday evening, before focusing on two hotels, where they attempted to pick out US and British nationals. Some 60 hours later, Indian commando units overcame the last remaining attackers, by which time nearly 200 people had been killed in the assault on the city.

A top Indian commando official also said yesterday that the militants had never intended to keep any hostages alive.

'At no stage did we get any demand from the side of the terrorists,' the head of the elite National Security Guard (NSG), Mr J.K. Dutt, told reporters.

All the 'senseless killings' in the Taj and Oberoi Trident hotels had been carried out before commando units stormed the buildings, he added.

He said the holdout terrorists had a comprehensive knowledge of the Taj's layout as they were able to move from one place to another 'without a mis-step'. And whenever the special forces units launched an offensive, the gunmen would set fire to a hotel room to create a diversion, before moving on to a new hiding place.

'For these reasons it was very difficult to dislodge them,' he said.

It was also revealed that the Taj hotel temporarily increased security after being warned of a possible terrorist attack, the chairman of the company that owns the hotel said.

But Tata Group Chairman Ratan Tata said those measures, which were eased shortly before last week's terror attacks, could not have prevented gunmen from entering the hotel.

'People couldn't park their cars in the portico, where you had to go through a metal detector,' Mr Tata said in a CNN interview aired yesterday, noting that the attackers did not come in through that entrance but via the back.

'They knew what they were doing, and they did not go through the front. All of our arrangements are in the front.'

In Malaysia, officials said they are checking whether the terrorists carried Malaysian-issued credit cards as reported by Indian media on Saturday. And Malaysia denied that the attackers had links to the country, following a report in the Times of India newspaper that prior to the carnage, some of them had rented rooms in Mumbai by claiming to be Malaysian students.

'We will definitely look into the addresses to see if the gunmen have a Malaysian link,' police chief Musa Hassan was quoted by the online version of the Star newspaper as saying.

Indian police have yet to provide details on the gunmen's identity and the addresses, he said.

Tan Sri Musa said Malaysian police were also liaising with their Indian counterparts and with Interpol to verify Malaysian credit cards found at the scene of the attacks.

Malaysian Home Minister Syed Hamid Albar said Malaysia had no links with the attackers, and that India had yet to make contact over the matter.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, REUTERS