Indian soldier killed in raid on Kashmir base by militants

At least four armed militants attacked an Indian Army base in Kashmir late on Sunday night, killing one border guard and wounding another, three weeks after 19 soldiers died nearby in a similar strike.

The attack on the army's counterterrorism unit in Baramulla – 54km northwest of the disputed state's summer capital Srinagar and adjoining the "line of control" that divides Kashmir between India and Pakistan – began around 10.30pm and went on until dawn yesterday.

Nobody has claimed responsibility for the attack, but Indian security sources believe the armed militants came from Pakistan-administered Kashmir, much like those who attacked the Uri garrison 50km away on September 18th.

The Indian Army responded to the Uri attack be launching retaliatory “surgical strikes” last Thursday against militant camps in Pakistan-administered Kashmir. Senior Indian army officers claimed their special forces units had gone as far as 3km across the line of control and destroyed militant outposts. Unofficial estimates place the number of militants killed in the raid at over 30 with all of the 150-odd Indian Army raiding party returning home.

Pakistan has vociferously denied any such attack but claimed that that cross-border shelling had killed two of its soldiers. However, senior officials in New Delhi, including defence minister Manohar Parrikar continue to insist that the cross-border raids at seven places along the line of control had, indeed, been executed to send Pakistan a stern warning against launching militants against Indian targets.

Pakistan denies any involvement in the Uri and other attacks and accuses India of launching "baseless" propaganda to discredit Islamabad.

Nuclear-armed neighbours

The Uri attack had considerably raised tension between the nuclear-armed neighbours and yesterday the two armies exchanged small arms and mortar fire across the line of control, in which India claimed four of its civilians were injured.

Each side blames the other for initiating the firing in the tit-for-tat skirmishes with the reality difficult, if not impossible, to independently determine.

The two national security advisers spoke by telephone yesterday in an attempt to calm the situation along the line of control.

India and Pakistan have been in confrontation over Kashmir since independence in 1947, fighting two of their three wars over the state, which is divided between the two, but claimed in its entirety by both.

They also fought an 11-week long border war in 1999 in which 1,200 soldiers died.