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| Saturday, 7 June 2003 |
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Kashmir guerrillas withstand India's military assault NEW DELHI, Friday (AFP) Some 250 guerrillas have survived India's biggest military assault in four years against Islamic militants in a southern zone of the disputed territory of Kashmir, military sources here said. "Operations in Hill Kaka are over but we think some 250 militants survived and are now locally dispersed," a top defence source said in a rare admission. India launched the operation on April 21 in the rugged jungles of the frontier Surankot district, killing 62 rebels and seizing mounds of weaponry. During the combat, the army claimed to have destroyed a total of 94 militant hideouts, including concrete bunkers and an underground tunnel large enough to house up to 40 combatants. Other sources said army reinforcements were being sent to stage a new blitz on the Islamic militants, and that helipads were being built in the region to speed up the induction of troops into Surankot, some 18 kilometres (11 miles) from Pakistan's borders. The source said despite the latest round of peace initiatives by India and Pakistan, which began on April 18, the army will not ease pressure on the Surankot militants, whom he described as "terrorists on the run."Muslim-majority region. |
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