Srinagar, Indian-administered Kashmir - A marathon gun battle at a paramilitary base in Indian-administered Kashmir has ended after almost 36 hours, with the killing of the last remaining gunman fighting off Indian security forces.

The fighting at the Lethpora-based camp, in southern Kashmir, left five Indian soldiers and three fighters dead, according to officials.



The attack began in the early hours of Sunday when three rebels stormed the vast base, located next to a police commando training centre.

Having taken the camps' guards by surprise, the attackers forced their way into the premises and took position inside the compound's buildings.

An intense gun battle ensued, as hundreds of police, army and paramilitary soldiers rushed to the scene.

Shesh Paul Vaid, regional police chief, told Al Jazeera that the "operation ... concluded" on Monday afternoon, almost 36 hours later, after security forces recovered the body of the third attacker.

Two local fighters

Officials said one of the gunmen was a foreigner, while the other two were local residents from nearby villages, making them the first Kashmiris to carry out a "fidayeen" attack in seven years.

Those kind of assaults are typically suicide raids against official Indian installations, such as army and paramilitary camps. Heavily armed, the fighters usually engage in long stand-offs with the security forces until being killed.



Most of the "fidayeen" attacks have been carried out by foreigners affiliated with two Pakistan-based outfits - Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad, which also claimed the raid at the Lethpora paramilitary base

Police identified the two local rebels as 16-year-old Fardeen Ahmad Khanday and 24-year-old Manzoor Ahmad Baba. They were both residents of south Kashmir's Pulwama district.

Thousands of people participated in their funerals, which were followed by clashes with security forces.

Decades of fighting

Anti-India sentiment runs deep among Kashmir's mostly Muslim population, and most support the rebels' cause against Indian rule, despite a decades-long military crackdown against the armed rebellion.

The Indian government and its security apparatus have been frequently accused of violating human rights and carrying out extrajudicial killings.

Rebel groups have been fighting since 1989 for the Indian-administered portion to become independent or merge with Pakistan.

The strength of these rebel groups has deteriorated sharply in recent years, though they maintain the capability to mount spectacular and deadly attacks against Indian security forces. </s> SRINAGAR, India (AP) - The Indian army says four suspected rebels have been killed in disputed Kashmir as businesses and schools shut in the region in response to a separatists' call to protest the killing of eight civilians by government forces during a weekend by-election.

Army spokesman Col. Rajesh Kalia says a gunbattle erupted Sunday night after the four militants crossed from Pakistani territory into the Indian-held portion of Kashmir in Keran sector. There was no independent confirmation of the incident.

Meanwhile, a strike called by separatists paralyzed life in the Kashmir Valley on Monday.

Government forces opened fire on Sunday on crowds of people who attacked polling stations during a by-election for a vacant seat in India's Parliament, killing eight people.

Most people in Indian-controlled Kashmir favor independence or a merger with Pakistan. </s> Two separate gun battles between rebels and government forces in restive Indian-administered Kashmir on Thursday left eight dead including six suspected rebels, police said.

A firefight broke out before dawn when government forces besieged a residential area in the city of Pulwama after being told about the presence of anti-India insurgents.

Police said that militants fired at the soldiers and a young man, in whose house the militants were hiding, was killed in the crossfire.

"After the security forces retaliated, three terrorists were killed in the ensuing encounter and their bodies retrieved," a police statement said, referring to the suspected rebels.

The slain militants belonged to Pakistan based Jaishe-e-Mohammad militant group, two of whom were locals while the other was a Pakistani citizen, the statement added.

The dead civilian's brother was also wounded during the gun battle.

Soldiers surrounded an orchard in neighbouring Shopian district where a group of rebels were hiding, sparking another fierce gun battle that lasted hours and ended with the deaths of three militants.

"All the three terrorists found in the orchard were killed in the encounter," regional inspector general of police Swayam Prakash Pani told AFP.

Pani said both the shootouts were a result of deliberate "counter-terrorist operations".

Yet another gun battle broke out in the forests of frontier Kupwara area near the heavily militarised Line of Control that divides the disputed region between India and Pakistan, a police officer said. No casualties were reported in that incident.

Rebel groups have for decades fought against Indian soldiers deployed in the part of Kashmir controlled by New Delhi, seeking the Himalayan territory's merger with Pakistan or outright independence.

The conflict has left tens of thousands dead, mostly civilians.

At least 83 rebels have been killed in armed clashes with Indian forces so far this year.

Last year was the deadliest in a decade when around 600 were killed including soldiers, rebels and civilians.

Kashmir has been divided between India and Pakistan since the end of British rule of the subcontinent in 1947. Both claim the territory in full.

New Delhi regularly blames Pakistan for helping the rebels, an allegation denied by Islamabad, which says it only provides moral and diplomatic support to a Kashmiri struggle for right to self-determination. </s> Eight personnel of the Central Reserve Police Force’s 212 battalion were killed and six injured in the Kistaram region of Chhattisgarh’s Sukma district on Tuesday, ANI reported. Of the injured personnel, four are in critical condition.

The security forces were carrying out search operations in the area when suspected Maoists detonated three explosives and started firing on the paramilitary soldiers, The Hindu reported. The rebels, who had earlier in the morning fired at the paramilitary force’s Cobra battalion, reportedly blew up the mine-protected vehicle the soldiers were travelling in. The incident reportedly took place at 12.30 pm.

This incident comes a week after two Border Security Force personnel were killed in the state’s Rowghat area and a former police constable was shot dead in Sukma. The attacks on the security forces have gone up since a joint team of the Telangana and Chattisgarh Police killed 12 suspected Maoists in Dantewada district’s Pukari Kanker region on March 2. </s> Srinagar, India (AP) — Five Indian soldiers and three suspected militants were killed Sunday after rebels stormed a paramilitary camp in disputed Kashmir, triggering a daylong battle, officials said.

Separately, Indian and Pakistani soldiers traded gunfire along the highly militarized line dividing Kashmir between the two rivals, killing an Indian soldier, India’s army said.

In the incident at the paramilitary camp, gunmen in combat dress entered the camp near southern Lethpora village early Sunday firing guns and grenades at the sentry, said paramilitary spokesman Rajesh Yadav. He said soldiers inside the camp responded to the attack, which left at least three soldiers wounded.

The camp is located along the strategic highway connecting the Kashmir Valley with the rest of India and close to the chain of plateaus famed for Kashmir’s saffron fields. Besides counterinsurgency operations, the camp also serves as a training center for soldiers.

The Jash-e-Mohammed militant group, which is fighting against Indian rule in Kashmir, claimed responsibility for the attack, according to the English-language Greater Kashmir newspaper. The paper quoted the group as saying that “such attacks will continue till the last Indian soldier leaves Kashmir.”

The initial assault on the camp left one paramilitary soldier dead and two others wounded. Police said reinforcements of army soldiers and counterinsurgency police encircled the camp and exchanged gunfire with the assailants.

In the subsequent fighting, three more paramilitary soldiers and two suspected rebels were killed. Another soldier died of cardiac arrest while being evacuated along with many others who were trapped in the camp’s residential buildings.

Police said the fighting stopped Sunday night with the killing of a third militant, and that troops were searching the camp area.

Anti-India unrest has simmered in Kashmir since a popular rebel leader was killed over a year ago. Apart from mass anti-India protests and clashes often leading to the deaths of protesters since the leader’s killing, dozens of young Kashmiri men have joined rebel groups, leading to a surge in attacks. The Indian government responded by stepping up anti-rebel operations.

Over 200 militants, 78 police officers and soldiers, and at least 57 civilians have died in the violence this year, the deadliest since 2010.

Also on Sunday, the Indian army said one soldier was killed after Pakistani troops fired at forward posts in Nowshera sector along the highly militarized Line of Control dividing Kashmir between the two nuclear-armed rivals.

Col. Nitin Joshi, an Indian military spokesman, called it an “unprovoked violation” of the 2003 cease-fire accord between the two countries, and said the Indian army “retaliated strongly and effectively.”

There was no immediate reaction from Pakistan.

India and Pakistan have a long history of bitter relations over the Himalayan territory of Kashmir. They have fought two of their three wars over the region since they gained independence from British colonial rule in 1947.

Rebel groups demand that Kashmir be united either under Pakistani rule or as an independent country.

Anti-India sentiment runs deep in Kashmir’s mostly Muslim population and most people support the rebels’ cause against Indian rule. Nearly 70,000 people have been killed in the uprising and the ensuing Indian military crackdown since 1989. India accuses Pakistan of arming and training the rebels, which Pakistan denies. </s> Security forces were hunting through forests in southeast India Monday for Maoist rebels after a fierce gunfight left 21 rebels dead and two policemen wounded.

The gunfight broke out late Sunday after police received a tip that 60 Maoist rebels were gathered in forests on the border of Odisha and Andhra Pradesh states, said a police officer speaking on customary condition of anonymity.

The gunfight lasted an hour before the rebels scattered into the dense forests. At daybreak Monday, police and paramilitary soldiers launched a search for them, he said.

Police have recovered some arms and ammunition from the area.

Andhra Pradesh's top police officer Nanduri Sambasiva Rao said search operations were going on as there were reports that some rebels were still in the area.

The rebels, who have been fighting for more than three decades demanding land and jobs for tenant farmers and the poor, say they are inspired by Chinese revolutionary leader Mao Zedong.

Considered India's biggest internal security threat, they operate in 20 of India's 28 states and have thousands of fighters. </s> Security forces were hunting through forests in southeast India for Maoist rebels after a fierce gunfight left 21 rebels dead and two policemen wounded.

The gunfight broke out late Sunday after police received a tip that 60 Maoist rebels were gathered in forests on the border of Odisha and Andhra Pradesh states, said a police officer speaking on customary condition of anonymity.

The gunfight lasted an hour before the rebels scattered into the dense forests. At daybreak Monday, police and paramilitary soldiers launched a search for them, he said.

The rebels, who say they're inspired by Chinese revolutionary leader Mao Zedong, have been fighting for more than five decades to demand rights and jobs for the poor. </s> Indian troops and separatist militants have clashed in Indian-controlled Kashmir, killing five people including a civilian, officials say.

Tension in Muslim-majority Kashmir has been high since a February 14 suicide bomb attack by the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) militant group killed at least 40 Indian paramilitary police.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave troops a "free hand" to respond to the attack, and near-daily searches in villages in Kashmir since then have often triggered violent confrontations, with civilians caught in crossfire.

Modi's tough response to the attack, which included an air strike against what India said was a militant camp in Pakistan, is believed to have given his party a boost in a general election that ends on May 19.

Three JeM militants, including a Pakistani commander, and an Indian soldier were killed in the gun battle in Dalipora, a village in south Kashmir, police said.

Villagers said a civilian, who they identified as Rayees Ahmad Dar, 32, was also killed after Indian soldiers had sent him to search a house where militants were believed to be hiding. Villagers in the area have complained before about the army using civilians as human shields in searches.

A police spokesman said Dar had been killed in indiscriminate firing by the militants, and denied he had been sent on a search.

Also on Thursday, police said seven people had been arrested and a curfew imposed on a town in the region after a Muslim man transporting horses was shot dead, allegedly by a Hindu group wanting to protect the rights of cows, an animal considered sacred in their religion.

India and Pakistan have fought three wars since their independence, two of them over the Himalayan region, and came close to another in February. </s> Tension in Muslim-majority Kashmir has been high since a Feb 14 suicide bomb attack by the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) militant group killed at least 40 Indian paramilitary police.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave troops a "free hand" to respond to the attack, and near-daily searches in villages in Kashmir since then have often triggered violent confrontations, with civilians caught in crossfire to the alarm of rights groups.

Modi's tough response to the bomb attack, which included an air strike against what India said was a militant camp in Pakistan, is believed to have given his party a boost in a general election that began on April 11 and ends on May 19.

Three JeM militants, including a Pakistani commander, and an Indian soldier were killed in the gun battle in Dalipora, a village in south Kashmir, which began in the early hours, police said.

Villagers said a civilian, who they identified as Rayees Ahmad Dar, 32, was also killed after Indian soldiers had sent him to search a house where militants were believed to be hiding. Villagers in the area have complained before about the army using civilians as human shields in searches.

A police spokesman said Dar had been killed in indiscriminate firing by the militants, and denied he had been sent on a search.

After the clash, villagers threw rocks at security forces, who responded with teargas, while lawyers in the state's high court went on strike in a protest over Dar's death.

Kashmir is at the heart of decades of hostility between India and Pakistan. The nuclear-armed neighbours both claim it in full but rule it in part.

The rivals have fought three wars since their independence, two of them over the Himalayan region, and came close to another after the February bomb attack.

Separatist militants, who India says are backed by Pakistan, have been fighting Indian security forces since 1989. Pakistan denies supporting the insurgents.

"Even in the holy month of Ramadan there is no let-up in killings and bloodshed in Kashmir as civilians, armed youth or even Indian forces are getting killed,” Kashmir's main separatist political group, the Joint Resistance Leadership, said in a statement.

The group called for a general strike in Kashmir on Friday.
An armed standoff between Indian security forces and Kashimiri rebels at a paramilitary base ends after 36 hours and leaves eight people dead.