Bloody Attack In Kashmir
In the deadliest attack in seven months, suspected Islamic militants opened fire at an Indian army base in Kashmir on Tuesday, killing at least 33 people and leaving 45 others wounded, police and officials said.
Three suspected militants, wearing army uniforms, got off a bus outside an army camp at Kaluchak and fired at soldiers, said Subhash Raina, a senior superintendent of police. Seven bus passengers were killed in the ensuing battle, he said.
The militants then entered the residential quarters of the camp and shot to death five soldiers and 18 of their family members, said Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah, the top elected official of Jammu-Kashmir state. The three militants also were killed.
Of the total killed, 10 were children and 12 women, he said.
At least 45 people were wounded, Abdullah said.
"They had AK 47s, they were firing all around, they had hand grenades, they had explosives," said Maj. Gen. Mohan Pandey, a defense spokesman in Jammu.
"We were asked to get off the bus and as we were getting down they started firing," one bus passenger said. "Some died, some were wounded. Three women were killed including my wife."
It was the deadliest attack since an Oct. 1 suicide bombing and shootout at the legislature building in Srinagar, the state's summer capital, which left at least 40 people dead.
Kaluchak lies six miles south of Jammu, the winter capital.
The attack came as U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christina Rocca met with top Indian officials on Tuesday to urge New Delhi to resume dialogue with Pakistan to end a six-month military standoff between the South Asian nuclear-armed rivals.
"It is just this type of barbarism that the war on terrorism is determined to stop," Rocca said.
More than a dozen Islamic militant groups have been fighting since 1989 for the independence of the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir, or its merger with Pakistan. New Delhi accuses Islamabad of arming, training and funding the militants. Pakistan denies it, but says it supports their goals.
Islamabad condemned Tuesday's attack, noting "the acts of violence resulting in civilian casualties" again coincided with high-level visits to the region.
"Such incidents warrant an impartial and comprehensive inquiry to unmask the motives of their perpetrators," the Associated Press of Pakistan quoted a government statement as saying.
In the Indian Parliament, Home Minister Lal Krishna Advani said, "The incident appears to have been timed to demonstrate to the world that despite the global coalition against terrorism, terrorists in Jammu and Kashir will continue to be active."
"It is not a coincidence that the incident has occurred at a time when a senior U.S. State Department official is visiting our country."
A Kashmiri news agency said it received two phone calls claiming responsibility for the attack, but neither claim was thought to be credible: one call was from a hitherto unknown militant group, Al-Mansoorain; the other from Jamiat-ul-Mujahedeen, which makes similar claims after most militant attacks in Kashmir.
An intelligence officer told The Associated Press that no group called Al-Mansoorain existed, and he dismissed the Jamiat claim. When militant groups have carried attacks in the past and wanted to claim responsibility they have contacted all major news organizations.
The gunmen had boarded the bus at Vijaipur, a small town six miles south of India's border with Pakistan. The bus was on its way to Jammu from Manali, a hill resort in the northern state of Himachal Pradesh.
India and Pakistan have deployed hundreds of thousands of soldiers on their border and the cease-fire line that divides Kashmir, which both countries claim. The military standoff began when suspected Islamic militants attacked India's Parliament on Dec. 13, killing 14 people.
New Delhi blamed Pakistani-backed Islamic rebels for the suicide assault. Islamabad denied the allegation.
The government says at least 30,000 people have been killed in the fighting. Human rights groups put the death toll at twice that number.