MUMBAI, India—More than 150 people have been killed since gunmen attacked 10 sites across India’s financial capital starting Wednesday night, including 22 foreigners—two of them Americans, officials said Friday.

As anger mounted, India blamed “elements” from Pakistan for the coordinated assault, which seemed designed to scare off foreign executives and tourists.

Pakistan said the two countries faced a common enemy. Urging New Delhi not to play politics, it agreed to send its spy chief to share intelligence on the suicide attacks.

Officials have been vowing to bring a quick end to the stand-off that they say has also wounded 370.

Earlier on Friday, masked Indian commandos dropped from helicopters onto the roof of a Jewish center in Mumbai where Muslim militants were holed up, possibly with hostages, as sharpshooters kept up a steady stream of fire at the five-story building.

The assault was punctuated by gunshots and explosions from within the building as the forces cleared the building floor-by floor.

A short way across the city, frequent gunshots and explosions also rang out from the luxury Taj Mahal Palace and Tower hotel as elite commandos fought cat-and-mouse battles with a lone gunman.

At a third site, the Oberoi Hotel, commandos killed two militants and freed 143 guests earlier in the day.

Well-dressed foreigners and Indians, some dragging their suitcases, trickled out and were escorted into waiting buses and cars.

One foreign member of the hotel staff left holding a baby in his arms, others wept as police showed them photographs of dead relatives for identification.

Militants knew hotel layout

Police said 24 bodies had been found at the Oberoi on Friday, potentially inflating the death toll still further.

On Thursday night they had predicted a quick end to the siege at the nearby Taj hotel. But hundreds of elite commandos have still failed to dislodge a lone gunman, thought to be wounded, in the maze of corridors of the 105-year-old hotel.

“He is moving in two floors, there is a dance floor area where apparently he has cut off all the lights,” Lt. Gen. N. Thamburaj told reporters.

“This morning while carrying out the operation we heard the sound of a lady and a gentleman, so it is possible that this terrorist has got two or more hostages with him.”

The head of an elite commando unit said the militants knew the layout of the hotel better than they did and called them “a very determined lot, remorseless.” The commander, his face disguised by a black scarf and sunglasses, said he had seen 50 bodies in the Taj, including 12 to 15 in one room.

One of the militants arrested in Mumbai was a Pakistani national, the interior minister of Maharashtra state, R.R. Patil, told reporters.

In a diplomatic exchange that raised the prospect of renewed tension between the nuclear-armed rivals, Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee urged Pakistan to dismantle infrastructure supporting militants.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh also warned on Thursday of “a cost” if India’s neighbors did not take action to stop their territory being used to launch such attacks.

On Friday he asked the head of Pakistan’s military intelligence service, the ISI, to visit to share information.

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, who says he wants much better relations with India, called Singh by telephone on Friday and agreed to the request for the visit.

But Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi called on India not to play politics over the attacks.

“Do not bring politics into this issue. This is a collective issue. We are facing a common enemy and we should join hands to defeat the enemy,” he told reporters during a visit to the Indian town of Ajmer.

Israeli hostages

Israel’s ambassador to India said he believed about six Israeli nationals were held hostage at the Jewish center.

“A couple of days ago an Indian caregiver managed to escape with a tiny baby belonging to the rabbi in Chabad House, but the rabbi and his wife are still inside,” Mark Sofer told Times Now television.

Mumbai, a city of 18 million, is the nerve-center of India’s growing economic might and home to the “Bollywood” film industry.

India’s main stock markets reopened on Friday after being closed on Thursday due to the attack, but the main share index closed up 0.73 percent.

An estimated 25 men armed with assault rifles and grenades—at least some of whom arrived by sea—had fanned out across Mumbai on Wednesday night to attack sites popular with tourists and businessmen, including the city’s top two luxury hotels.

Dawn assault

At the headquarters of the ultra-orthodox Jewish outreach group Chabad Lubavitch, a commando assault began shortly after dawn following a tense night in which six trucks of soldiers had been brought in to surround the building.

Snipers stationed in buildings opposite the center began the attack, with sustained fire on the building as at least nine commandos lowered themselves by rope onto the roof from a circling Indian Air Force helicopter.

Hundreds of onlookers, many with binoculars, crowded onto the roofs and in narrow alleys of southern Mumbai, trying to catch a glimpse of the dramatic commando assault.

It was not immediately clear if there were hostages in the building or their fate.

On Thursday morning, two workers and a child escaped from the building, the only people to emerge so far. The child was identified as Moshe Holtzberg, 2, the son of Rabbi Gavriel Noach Holtzberg, the main representative at Chabad house. The child was unharmed, but his clothes were soaked in blood.

Well-coordinated strikes

The well-coordinated strikes by small bands of gunmen starting Wednesday night left the city shell-shocked, but the sporadic gunfire and explosions at the Taj Mahal and Oberoi hotels dwindled overnight, indicating the sieges there might be winding down.

Security forces searched room by room at the hotels—two of the top gathering spots for the Mumbai elite—but there were no gunbattles or blasts. Commandos had spent much of Thursday bringing out hostages, trapped guests and corpses from the hotels in small groups while firefighters battled flames that erupted. The fires were out by Friday.

The Maharashtra state home ministry said dozens of hostages had been freed from the Oberoi and dozens more were still trapped inside. More than 400 people were brought out of the Taj Mahal on Thursday.

Authorities said they had killed three gunmen at the Taj. However, Army commanders said they believed there were still two or three more militants in the Taj and about 15 civilians. “We need to get them out of the rooms they have locked themselves into,” said Brig. Bobby Mathews.

‘External forces’

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh blamed “external forces” for the violence—a phrase sometimes used to refer to Pakistani militants, whom Indian authorities often blame attacks on.

The gunmen were well-prepared, even carrying large bags of almonds to keep up their energy during the fight. Their main targets appeared to be Americans, Britons and Jews, though most of the dead seemed to be Indians and foreign tourists caught in the random gunfire.

The gunmen—some of whom strode casually through their targets in khakis and T-shirts—clearly came ready for a siege.

“They have AK-47s and grenades. They have bags full of grenades and have come fully prepared,” said Maj. Gen. R.K. Hooda.

Ratan Tata, who runs the company that owns the elegant Taj Mahal, said they had detailed knowledge of the layout of the hotels.

US team coming

A US investigative team was heading to Mumbai, a state department official said Thursday evening, speaking on condition of anonymity because the US and Indian governments were still working out final details. The official declined to identify which agency or agencies the team members came from.

India has been shaken repeatedly by terror attacks blamed on Muslim militants in recent years, but most of them were coordinated bombings striking random crowded places: markets, street corners, parks.

Analysts around the world were debating whether the gunmen could have been tied to—or inspired by—al-Qaeda. Reports from Reuters and AP