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Attack kills 12 soldiers in Indian Kashmir
SRINAGAR, India, Feb 14, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – At least 12 Indian soldiers were
killed on Thursday in the deadliest attack on government forces in Indian-
administered Kashmir in more than two years, police said.
They died when an improvised explosive device (IED) went off as a convoy
of military vehicles drove on a highway some 20 kilometres (12 miles) from
the main city of Srinagar.
“An IED went off as a CRPF (Central Reserve Police Force) convoy passed
by,” senior police officer Munir Ahmed Khan told AFP.
“We have 12 CRPF fatalities. We are evacuating the injured from the site
and don’t have their number at the moment.”
The Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency put the death toll at 18.
CRPF spokesman Sanjay Kumar said that the explosives were inside a car,
while local media reports said the explosive-laden vehicle was driven into
the convoy.
“It was a powerful explosion. The explosive was car-borne,” Kumar told
AFP.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, another CRPF official said at least 29
troops were injured in the blast, which damaged a number of vehicles in the
convoy.
Unconfirmed photos showed the charred remains of at least one vehicle
littered across the highway, alongside blue military buses as black smoke
billowed upwards.
Local media reports said the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed Islamist
group had claimed responsibility.
A spokesman for the group said the “suicide attack” was carried out by a
militant called Aadil Ahmad, alias Waqas Commando, in a statement sent to
local newspapers.
The last major car bombing, which killed 40 people including three suicide
attackers, was also carried out by Jaish-e-Mohammed, in 2001. The target of
that attack was the local parliament building in Srinagar.
Another car bomb attack also happened in Srinagar in March 2005 in which
one civilian died and several soldiers were wounded.
– ‘Surgical strikes’ –
Thursday’s attack was the deadliest on Indian forces in its part of
Kashmir since September 2016 when 19 soldiers were killed in a brazen pre-
dawn raid by militants on the Uri army camp.
India blamed militants in Pakistan for that attack, the biggest in 14
years, and responded by carrying out strikes across the heavily-militarised
Line of Control, the de-facto border dividing the nuclear-armed nations.
Indian officials said troops conducted the “surgical strikes” several
kilometres (miles) inside the Pakistan-controlled side of the disputed
territory to prevent attacks being planned on major Indian cities.
The strikes are a source of national pride for Prime Minister Narendra
Modi’s government and were the subject of a rousing recent Bollywood film,
“Uri: The Surgical Strike”.
India has an estimated 500,000 soldiers in Kashmir, which has been divided
between India and Pakistan since independence from Britain in 1947.
Rebel groups have been fighting for an independent Kashmir, or a merger
with Pakistan, since 1989.
New Delhi accuses Pakistan of fuelling the insurgency that has left tens
of thousands of civilians dead.
Islamabad denies the charge, saying it only provides diplomatic support to
Kashmiris’ right to self-determination.
BSS/AFP/RY/20:25 hrs