Twenty killed in renewed Kashmir violence

Twenty people have died in separatist violence in Indian Kashmir over the last 24 hours.

Twenty people have died in separatist violence in Indian Kashmir over the last 24 hours.

The deaths come despite insistence by officials that violence has eased as Muslim fighters head for Afghanistan to prepare for a possible US attack.

Indian army and paramilitary soldiers shot dead seven militants near the Pakistani border and five militants were shot along the Line of Control dividing disputed Kashmir between India and Pakistan.

In Jammu, the winter capital of the state, two Pakistani men were shot dead, police said.

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In a separate militant attack in southern Kashmir, one villager was killed and three soldiers were injured, police said.

Elsewhere, 12 people including nine militants were killed in shootouts in the last 24 hours, officials said.

A dozen rebel groups including fighters from Afghanistan, Pakistan and other Islamic countries are fighting Indian rule in the country's only Muslim-majority state.

Indian intelligence agencies reported last week that the leader of Afghanistan's ruling Taliban, Mullah Mohammad Omar, had appealed to militants in Kashmir to come to Afghanistan to help it stand up to a likely US strike.

Many militant groups in Kashmir have vowed to repulse any US retaliatory attacks on Afghanistan.

Officials say more than 30,000 people have been killed in Kashmir since the revolt began in late 1989, but the separatists put the toll closer to 80,000.

India controls 45 per cent of Kashmir, Pakistan one-third and China the rest. India and Pakistan have fought two of their three wars since 1947 over the disputed region.