The future of General Motors has been called into question. On Thursday, a regulatory filing revealed that accounting firm Deloitte & Touche, the company's auditors, have "substantial doubt" the disturbed automaker can stay in business.

General Motors (nyse: GM - news - people ) confirmed Tuesday that it's nearing a resolution for its parts marker Delphi, which has been floundering in Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection since 2005. (See "GM Steering Delphi Out Of Chapter 11.")

Shares of GM fell 12.7%, or 28 cents, to $1.92, in early-morning trading. Over the past year, its stock value has lost 91.7%.

GM recently received $13.4 billion in federal loans, and it's hoping for a total of $30.0 billion. During the past three years, it has piled up $82.0 billion in losses, including $30.9 billion in 2008.

Deloitte & Touche attributed its warning to recurring losses from operations, stockholders' deficit and an inability to generate enough cash to meet its obligations.

GM said that its future depends on successfully executing the viability plan submitted to the government in February to justify the loans. "If we fail to do so for any reason, we would not be able to continue as a going concern and could potentially be forced to seek relief through a filing under the U.S. Bankruptcy Code," the company said in the annual report.

The Associated Press contributed to this article.

Commandos who stormed the Mumbai headquarters of an ultra-orthodox Jewish group found the bodies of five hostages inside, including a New York rabbi and his wife, officials said, as a fresh battle raged at the luxury Taj Mahal hotel and other Indian forces ended a siege at another five-star hotel.

More than 150 people have been killed since gunmen attacked 10 sites across India's financial capital starting Wednesday night, including 22 foreigners - four of them Americans, officials said.

Early Friday night, Indian commandos emerged from a besieged Jewish center with rifles raised in an apparent sign of victory after a daylong siege that saw a team rappel from helicopters and a series of explosions and fire rock the building and blow giant holes in the wall.

Inside, though, were five dead hostages.

A delegation from Israel's ZAKA emergency medical services unit entered the building after the raid and reported through an Indian aide that five hostages and two gunmen were dead, a ZAKA spokesman in Israel said. The spokesman had no information on the hostages' identities or whether there were wounded inside.

Jewish law requires the burial of a dead person's entire body, and the mission of the ultra-Orthodox ZAKA volunteers is to rescue the living - and in the case of the dead, carry out the task of gathering up all collectable pieces of flesh and blood.

Numerous local media reports, quoting top military officials, also said five hostages and two gunmen had been killed in the Jewish center.

By David Kiley

GOP to Detroit: Drop Dead

Democrats may have been the big victors on Election Day. But the Republicans still in charge in the White House and representing a possibly immovable minority in the Senate may keep the U.S. auto industry from getting the help it needs before Barack Obama is inaugurated as President in January.

To convince wary Republicans to go along with a rescue package, a House bill being crafted would give the government stock warrants, an equity stake in the automakers. It also has a provision that would put taxpayers at or near the head of the line for debt repayment when the companies recover.

Without at least $15 billion in loans, General Motors (GM), say insiders, could face bankruptcy next year. The total loan package sought by Democrats for automakers and their suppliers could be as high as $50 billion, a number floated by aides to President-elect Obama.

GM's CEO G. Richard Wagoner Jr. said Thursday, Nov. 13, in an interview with Automotive News that he is willing to accept just about any condition on the loans he has heard expressed by political leaders. "Whether that's stock warrants, restrictions on executive compensation and golden parachutes, we've said we're very willing to accept those," Wagoner said. In announcing GM's fifth straight quarterly loss last week (BusinessWeek.com, 11/7/08), Wagoner said GM may run out of cash to operate before mid-2009.

Questions for the Auto Chiefs

Chrysler CEO Robert Nardelli said Thursday that he doubted his company could survive without government loans. "It would be very difficult to make it through this unprecedented downturn" without help, he said at a conference in Palm Desert, Calif. At the same time, said Nardelli, the automaker "cannot assume we are going to get financial assistance" and may have to close two more assembly plants.

The House and Senate committees overseeing the financial-services industries have called hearings on Nov. 18-19 that will involve testimony from the CEOs of GM, Ford (F), and Chrysler, as well as other authorities from the auto industry. Last week, hearings were considered unnecessary. But there is so much mounting GOP opposition to auto industry loans that Representative Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and Senator Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), the chairmen of the House finance and Senate banking committees, respectively, changed course.

Questions for the group are expected to focus on the following:

• How did GM get to the point of near-bankruptcy?

• What kinds of guarantees can you offer Congress that your companies will be viable after a possible infusion of loans?

• How sure are you that you will be able to pay it back? How real is the threat of more than a million jobs going away if GM files for Chapter 11?

• Why are you so top-heavy in trucks and SUVs, when Toyota (TM) and Honda (HMC) are not?

• How specifically will you use the liquidity?

To GM and Chrysler:

• Will you use the money in 2009 to help achieve a merger of your two companies? If so, why is it necessary?

• Will you commit to significant restrictions on executive compensation as a condition of these loans?

1. Elvis Presley
2. Charles M. Schulz
3. Heath Ledger
4. Albert Einstein
5. Aaron Spelling
6. Dr. Seuss (Theodor Geisel)
7. John Lennon
8. Andy Warhol
9. Marilyn Monroe
10. Steve McQueen
11. Paul Newman
12. James Dean
13. Marvin Gaye

No. 2 Leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq Killed

BAGHDAD, Oct. 15 -- The U.S. military on Wednesday announced the death of a man it described as the No. 2 leader of the Sunni insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq.

The military said it killed the leader known as Abu Qaswarah on Oct. 5 during an operation in the northern city of Mosul in which four other alleged al-Qaeda in Iraq members were slain.

Abu Qaswarah, who also used the alias Abu Sara, directed the group's operations in northern Iraq, where al-Qaeda in Iraq remains entrenched and has been blamed for recent large-scale attacks, the military said.

The Moroccan native was the deputy of al-Qaeda in Iraq's leader, known as Abu Ayyub al-Masri, and he had "historic ties" to the group's founder, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was killed in June 2006, the military said in a statement issued Wednesday afternoon. Masri is believed to be an Egyptian whose real name is Yusuf al-Dardiri.

"Abu Qaswarah is another example of how al-Qaeda in Iraq has been forced to rely on foreign terrorists to carry out their vicious attacks on the Iraqi people as well as coalition and Iraqi forces," said Rear Adm. Patrick Driscoll, a U.S. military spokesman. "Terrorists who bring radical and fanatic Islam into Iraq commit murderous acts against the people of Iraq and have no place in the future of Iraq." 

Al-Qaeda in Iraq is a largely homegrown group that U.S. officials say is led by non-Iraqi Arabs. The U.S. military and the Iraqi army have in recent months cracked down on the group in Baghdad and in Diyala and Anbar provinces. As the group lost members and support from the population in former strongholds, many of its leaders moved to Mosul, an ethnically mixed city that is Iraq's third largest.

The U.S. military said soldiers searching for Abu Qaswarah were shot at when they arrived at a building in Mosul that the insurgent group used as a command center. U.S. soldiers returned fire, killing five men, including Abu Qaswarah. The military said it did not disclose his death sooner because it was awaiting confirmation of his identity.

Describing Abu Qaswarah as a "charismatic" leader who rallied al-Qaeda in Iraq's northern network following major setbacks across the country, the military said he planned attacks on U.S. and Iraqi troops in Mosul and oversaw a foiled attempt to destroy the Mosul Civic Center last month, an attack that could have killed hundreds of people during Ramadan.

The military also said Abu Qaswarah trained in Afghanistan and found ways to get foreign fighters into northern Iraq.

While violence in Iraq is at a four-year low, U.S. military officials say they remain deeply concerned about security in Mosul.

Hundreds of Christian families have fled their homes in Nineveh province, which includes Mosul, amid a wave of slayings targeting Christians in recent weeks.

Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said economic and political problems in Nineveh have worked to the advantage of insurgents. The predominantly Sunni Arab province is run by Kurds, because the Sunni Arabs boycotted the 2005 election. Many of the province's citizens are leery of the Iraqi army there, which is a largely Kurdish force. And the police forces in Mosul remain infiltrated by extremists, Odierno said.

"If the population feels they are not being supported by the provincial government and the provincial council, they may not want al-Qaeda there, but they will give them passive support," Odierno said.

Pressure on the group in Iraq has led its leaders to encourage followers to travel to Afghanistan, that country's defense minister told a news conference in Kabul Tuesday.

"The success of coalition forces in Iraq and also some other issues in some of the neighboring countries have made it possible that there is a major increase in the foreign fighters," Gen. Abdul Rahim Wardak said. "They are well-trained, more sophisticated; their coordination is much better."