Pakistan gets warning over Mumbai investigation

“I have said that Pakistan needs to act with resolve and urgency, and co-operate fully and transparently,” she said. “I know too this is a time when cooperation of all parties who have any information is really required.”

Indian and US officials have accused Pakistani-based groups of the attacks.

Ms Rice said it was too early to say who was responsible for the attack, but: “Whether there is a direct al Qaida hand or not, this is clearly the kind of terror in which al Qaida participates.”

The Indian government, already facing accusations of security and intelligence failures, has demanded that Pakistan take action against those responsible and asked that 20 suspected terrorists believed living in the country be handed over.

However, Pakistani President Asif Zardari said any of the 20 suspects wanted by India would be tried in Pakistan if there is evidence of wrongdoing.

Mr Zardari said he would “look into all the possibility of any proof” about the suspects sought by India and insisted they would be dealt with under Pakistani law.

“At the moment, these are just names of individuals – no proof and no investigation,” he said.

“If we had the proof, we would try them in our courts and we would try them in our land and we would sentence them.”

The only surviving attacker has told police that he and the other nine gunmen had trained for months in camps in Pakistan operated by the banned Pakistani militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba.

Authorities said yesterday that ex-Pakistani army officers trained the gunmen behind the attacks – some for up to 18 months – and the group set out by boat from the Pakistani port of Karachi.

The revelations came as a senior Bush administration official said India had received a warning from the United States that militants were plotting a waterborne assault on Mumbai.

Last week’s attacks against hotels, a restaurant and other sites across this sprawling city killed 171 people, including 26 foreigners. The death toll was revised down from 172 after authorities realised they had counted a victim twice.

“More bodies being found is ruled out,”a Maharashtra state government spokesman said.

The attacks exposed weakness in India’s security and intelligence agencies, which apparently failed to act on multiple warnings ahead of the Mumbai attacks.

India’s foreign intelligence agency also had warnings as recently as September that Pakistan-based terrorists were plotting attacks on Mumbai.

The information, intercepted from phone conversations apparently coming out of Pakistan, indicated that hotels might be targeted but did not specify which ones, said an official.

At the Taj Mahal Hotel, where the siege finally ended on Saturday morning, authorities tightened security in the weeks before the attacks after being warned of a possible threat.

At the Oberoi hotel, the second five-star hotel the gunmen seized, the shopping arcade opened today for the first time since the attacks.