Posted on 06/28/2003 11:59:09 AM PDT by swarthyguy
Two militants attacked an army cantonment in Sunjwan, on the Jammu-Srinagar bypass early on Saturday, killing 12 army men and injuring seven.
The two militants, who seemed to have been on a suicide mission, were shot down in the six-hour gunfight that followed the surprise attack on the camp.
The Army and police believe the militants were Pakistanis. The police have sealed off entries to the cantonment.
Brigadier B.S. Jind and army spokesman Lt. Col. B.S. Rathore said the militants were wearing Indian Army uniforms and were hiding in tall bushes around the camp. At about 4:30 a.m., they hurled grenades and began shooting. After that they managed to enter a barrack where soldiers were sleeping. The militants fired at them, killing 12 soldiers and wounding seven.
By then the camp guards opened fire and brought down one of the militants. The other escaped and hid in a building in the cantonment, but was later found and shot dead.
Witnesses said the shooting continued till 9.30 a.m. Senior army officers visited the camp after that to assess the situation.
The attack is the second of the kind in Jammu. Militants had attacked an army camp in Kaluchak on May 13, 2002, killing 32 people.
The soldiers injured in Saturday's attack have been shifted to a military hospital in Satwari, on the outskirts of Jammu. Two of them, said to be in a critical condition, have been flown to a military hospital in Udhampur.
Later, a bomb disposal squad sanitised the entire area and defused three grenades.
Two AK-47 rifles with Pakistani markings and LeT symbols, 13 magazines, 470 rounds of shells, 23 grenades, some other explosive material and Rs 1,800 in Pakistani currency were found on the terrorists' persons.
Ironically, the attack came two days after President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam had said good times were likely to return to the state soon.
Apprehending more suicide attacks, the Army has put all its units in J&K on high alert and announced that anti-militancy sweeps would be stepped up throughout the state.
From the NYTIMES:
Kashmir Clash Kills 12 Indian Soldiers During Visit by Premier By DAVID ROHDE
RINAGAR, Kashmir, June 28 — In the deadliest attack on Indian forces in the disputed territory of Kashmir in months, two suspected separatists killed 12 Indian soldiers and wounded 7 before dawn today after sneaking into a military base outside the city of Jammu.
The attack, in which the two men lobbed grenades and fired assault rifles at the soldiers before being shot dead themselves, came during the first visit to Kashmir by a sitting Indian president in six years. It poses a challenge to a fragile, American-backed peace effort under way between India and Pakistan.
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President A. P. J. Abdul Kalam was hundreds of miles away from the site of the attack and was in no danger. But it occurred only a few miles from the site of a May 2002 suicide strike on army barracks that killed 34 soldiers and family members, infuriating Indian officials.
That strike, which followed a failed December 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament building in New Delhi, prompted India to mass hundreds of thousands of soldiers on its border with Pakistan and brought the two nuclear-capable countries to the brink of war.
Indian accuses Pakistan of arming, training and financing separatists in predominantly Muslim Kashmir where they have been waging a 13-year campaign to win independence from India. Pakistan denies financing the groups, and accuses Indian forces of human rights violations in Kashmir.
Senior American diplomats have applauded the new peace initiative and repeatedly visited the region since last year's war scare.
This week, President Bush urged Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, to resolve the dispute peacefully. The two leaders met at the presidential retreat at Camp David.
Kashmiris, caught between India and Pakistan, have suffered the most in a conflict waged in one of the most beautiful places in the world. More than 35,000 people, including 14,000 civilians, have been killed in skirmishes, raids and suicide attacks carried out in a stretch of Himalayan territory claimed by both countries.
The Press Trust of India reported that an unidentified caller said a previously unknown group, Al Nasreen, claimed responsibility for the attack.
Indian military officials said two men dressed in Indian army uniforms walked into the Sujwan military base about five miles south of Jammu at 4:30 a.m.
"They entered into a barracks where unarmed soldiers were," Brig. J. S. Thind, the camp's commander, said on Indian television.
For five minutes, the militants hurled hand grenades and fired assault rifles, killing and wounding as many soldiers as they could.
Brigadier Thind said a "quick reaction force" located the attackers within minutes.
Other officials said one of the attackers was killed instantly, while the other was able to hide behind a wall and shoot at pursuing soldiers.
In any case, the killing of 12 soldiers will most likely complicate a peace effort begun by India's prime minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, in April with a speech in Kashmir.
As an initial step, the two countries had restored full diplomatic relations and had planned to re-establish bus and air links that were severed when they nearly went to war last spring.
Lets save the LORD a trip and kill everyone of them, men, women, and rugrats. Don't tell me about all the good ones because I'll have to ask them to stand and be counted just like I would ask "SOME" of the more Liberal "MINORITIES" in this country to stand and be counted.
Well, I guess this isn't possible so lets let it up to the big guy he'll pick the time and place. OOPS! We already know the place.
If I were in either army I wouldn't mind being sent to Iraq. Its actually safer.
Not when they breed like rabbits.
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