MUMBAI - A succession of three loud blasts were heard in south Mumbai Thursday, an AFP correspondent said, amid media reports that an operation was under way against armed militants who had taken a rabbi hostage.

There was no immediate reason given by police, but local media said one explosion was at the Taj Mahal hotel, another at the Trident/Oberoi hotel and at Nariman House, where Jewish rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg was seized.

Heavily-armed extremists claiming to belong to a little-known group, the Deccan Mujahedeen, attacked a number of locations in the city late Wednesday.