14 Killed in Kashmiri Resistance Attacks

14 Killed in Kashmiri Resistance Attacks
SRINAGAR, India (AFP) - Fresh violence by suspected Kashmiri nationalist fighters, including a human bomb attack on a state-owned radio station in Indian Kashmir has left 14 people dead and ten security force personnel injured.

The fresh deaths mark the second day of bloody violence that left 18 people dead on Friday, including six in a human bomb attack on a paramilitary sector headquarters and a bomb explosion in a courthouse that killed three and injured 40 others.

Two Indian security men and three Kashmiri fighters were killed Saturday in a attack on the Radio Kashmir office in the heart of Srinagar, the summer capital of Indian-ruled Kashmir.

Seven other security force personnel were injured in the attack.

Police said three fighters detonated a car laden with explosives near the main gate of Radio Kashmir killing a policeman, before they tried to storm into building in the confusion.

Indian troops deployed in and around the radio station opened fire killing one of the fighters, while the other two ran away.

"They were engaged in a gun battle by the security forces in which both of them were killed," said Tirath Achariya, a spokesman for India's Border Security Force (BSF).

A BSF trooper was also killed during the gunfight, he said.

Officials said it was a human bomb attack as at least two of the fighters had grenades strapped to their bodies.

A little-known resistance group, the al Madina regiment, claimed responsibility for the attack in telephone calls to local newspapers.

The group had also said it carried out the human bomb attack on Friday at a paramilitary sector headquarters in north Kashmir.

Meanwhile, a police spokesman said three fighters were killed near the Line of Control (LoC) -- the defacto border that divides Kashmir between nuclear-rivals India and Pakistan -- in the frontier village of Sagra.

An Indian army soldier was also killed.

It was the third encounter this week along the LoC in Poonch. In two previous encounters 13 fighters were killed.

PHOTO CAPTION

Indian securitymen standing near the body of a fighter killed in a human bomb attack in Kashmir (AFP/Tauseef Mustafa


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