MUMBAI, India (CNN) -- Fighting broke out early Friday between government soldiers in a helicopter and gunmen holed up inside a Jewish center where two or three gunmen were believed to be remaining.
The helicopter dropped off seven or eight soldiers onto the roof of the Chabad house, and then moved away from the line of fire, CNN sister station CNN-IBN reported.
The operation followed after grenades had been tossed from inside the structure toward anyone approaching the building -- three such explosions occurred in four hours.
But movement appeared imminent shortly before dawn, when several jeeploads of police, firetrucks and at least one ambulance pulled up to the five-story structure.
The fighting at Chabad house comes as Indian security forces appear to be gaining control of two Mumbai five-star hotels attacked by gunmen in a wave of violence that has lasted more than 24 hours and killed at least 125 people.
A gunman was killed around 1 a .m. in the Oberoi hotel, where commandos were going room-to-room, trying to flush out attackers and rescue people, J.K. Dutt, the director of India's National Security Guard, told CNN-IBN, CNN's sister network in India.
Dutt said he could not say how many gunmen remained in the Oberoi, where hostages have been trickling out of the building for hours.
Security forces used in-house telephones to ask guests holed up in their rooms to switch on lights and open curtains, so that they could provide cover, CNN correspondent Andrew Stevens reported.
A siege at the nearby Taj Mahal hotel was over, CNN-IBN reported, but one gunman remained holed up there early Friday morning, Dutt told IBN.
Police sources said at 2 a .m. Friday that they believed the gunman was wounded and getting tired.
Dutt said his teams had rescued most of the hostages inside the Taj, but an undetermined number of people remained inside.
One woman expressed frustration over the lack of information regarding her sister and niece, who have been trapped inside the Taj for nearly 30 hours.
"I have whatsoever no information as to what's being done to rescue them," said the woman, who did not give her name to CNN.
"There is somebody inside who is preventing the rescue," she said. "They should take action and let us know what is happening."
Deepak Datta told CNN that he waited in his room at the Taj, listening to gunfire, for almost 24 hours before commandos rescued him.
"There was a lot of explosions right before my rescue," he said. "The explosions kept getting louder then they opened the door with a master key,"
Elsewhere in the city, a standoff continues at a Jewish center in the city, a spokesman for the Israeli foreign ministry said.
For hours, gunfire and grenades were tossed from inside at anyone approaching the building, with three such explosions occurring in four hours.
But movement appeared imminent shortly before dawn, when several jeeploads of police, firetrucks and at least one ambulance pulled up to the five-story structure.
It is unclear who was responsible for the series attacks, which hit several high-traffic landmarks in the city, including the hotels, a hospital, a train station and a popular tourist cafe.
But whoever planned the attacks spent months coordinating them, even setting up "control rooms" in the two hotels targeted, the Press Trust of India reported, citing Union Cabinet Minister Kapil Sibal.
"Enormous planning went into the incident. The terrorists were dropped by a mother ship and traveled in rubber boats which they docked (at Mumbai)," Sibal said.
The death toll from the series of coordinated attacks was at 125, by Friday morning, authorities said. Among the dead were at least six foreigners, three top law enforcement agents, including Hemant Karkare, the chief of the Mumbai police's anti-terror squad, and 14 police officers.
Another 327 people were wounded in the attacks, including seven British, three American and two Australian citizens.
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh suggested the group behind the terror attacks was based outside the country.
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