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Messages of outrage from Europe

Paris: Horror-struck Europeans were glued to their television screens on Thursday as the terror attacks and accompanying hostage drama in Mumbai was beamed in real time into their rooms.

European nations are planning to send a special plane to Mumbai to evacuate EU nationals trapped in the city, sources here indicate. In addition, the Spanish government said it would send a plane to bring out Spaniards stranded in Mumbai. Messages of outrage and condolence have been pouring out of European capitals.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy who holds the EU’s rotating six-month presidency in a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said: “After the tragic hours that have plunged Mumbai into grief, I would like to express my entire solidarity in the name of France and in my own name. In this painful moment I would also like to send my condolences to the families of the victims of these contemptible attacks and to offer my sympathy to the wounded.”

In a statement issued in Brussels, Javier Solana, EU’s foreign policy chief, described the attacks as “heinous.”

He underlined the need for more concerted international action in the fight against terrorism.

The attacks “remind us yet again of the threat we face from violent extremists,” said U.K. Foreign Secretary David Miliband in a statement issued in London. The Mumbai attacks on innocent people were “despicable and cowardly,” Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, Secretary-General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, said in a statement. “NATO, as part of the international community, is determined to spare no effort to fight the scourge of terrorism which should have no place in the 21st century,” said Mr. de Hoop Scheffer.

DPA reports from Vatican City:

Pope Benedict XVI sent condolences to the victims of the attacks saying such terrorist acts “gravely offend the human family.” The message was contained in a telegram sent by the Vatican to the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Mumbai, Cardinal Oswald Gracias.

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