October 22, 2001
Four suspected Muslim militants were killed Monday when security forces foiled an attack on a high-security Indian Air Force base in Indian Kashmir, an army spokesman said.
An air force employee and a civilian were also killed when the militants opened fire at the gates of the fortified base, a Kashmir police spokesman said.
They drove up to the base in a van, stopped near the main entrance and opened fire, he said. Indian border guards at the facility fired back and killed all the four occupants of the vehicle, said Brigadier Jaspal Singh of the Indian army headquarters in New Delhi.
He said the attackers were armed with AK-47 assault rifles and hand grenades.
Brigadier Singh said the privately-owned vehicle was being checked for explosives by experts at the airbase, located at Koel, 40 kilometres (25 miles) south of Kashmir's summer capital Srinagar. Most VIPs, including Indian government ministers, use the base during their visits to Kashmir.
People living in villages close to the air base were dragged out of their houses and paraded in front of masked informers of Indian security agencies to see if they could be identified as militants.
The Lashkar-e-Taiba frontline Islamic separatist group, said it carried out the attack.
Spokesman Abu Osama told AFP in Srinagar that the four Lashkar militants died after a three-hour firefight and added that they killed eight Indian soldiers and air force personnel before being gunned down.
Indian authorities, however, rejected the claims.
Following the attempt to storm the base, security around Srinagar and Jammu airports was tightened, officials said.
Lashkar militants last year made an abortive attempt to storm Srinagar's main airport, leaving 13 people dead.
In New Delhi, military officials said the attack could be a signal to rebel groups to step up attacks in Indian Kashmir, which eased slightly after the October 1 car bomb blast at the state legislature in Srinagar, which left 38 dead and 60 injured.
Brigadier Singh added that military inputs also indicated that Kashmiri militants were under orders from their commanders not to leave Kashmir for Afghanistan and join ranks with the Taliban militia, which is under US attack.
"They (guerrillas) have not left and on the contrary they have been asked to stay in Kashmir and raise the level of militancy," Singh said.
India, meanwhile, warned that it would take measures to beat back infiltration from adjoining Pakistan.
"We will take all steps to prevent infiltration from the other side and we would step up activities depending on the scale and nature of such requirements," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Nirupama Rao told reporters in New Delhi.
India accuses Pakistan of arming and training militants, a charge Islamabad denies but openly offers moral and diplomatic support to what it describes as the Kashmiris' just struggle for self-expression.
More than 35,000 people have died in Kashmir, India's only Muslim-majority state, since the launch of the rebellion in the Himalayan territory in 1989.
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