SRINAGAR, July 31 (2002): An Indian government official and a policeman were killed and six people were wounded in fresh militant attacks in India's strife-torn Kashmir region, Indian police said on Wednesday. In the Pakistan-controlled sector of the region, three people were killed in the last 24 hours from shelling by Indian troops firing over the Line of Control dividing the two countries in Kashmir, Pakistan police said. A 15-year-old Pakistani boy also died on Tuesday when he kicked an unexploded bomb, they...

NEW DELHI, July 31 (2002):India said on Wednesday rebel incursions into disputed Kashmir had fallen slightly in recent months after Pakistan promised to stop the flow. New Delhi has set a permanent end to infiltration in the bloodied region as a condition to ending a seven-month military standoff with Pakistan. "If we compare with the past years, this year the infiltration has somewhat reduced but has not stopped, it still continues," Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani told parliament. Indian government...

SRINAGAR, July 30 (2002):Two people, including a Hindu pilgrim, were killed and four devotees injured when militants hurled a grenade at them during a pilgrimage in disputed Kashmir, police said. The victims were in a taxi along the pilgrimage route. It is the first attack on the month-long Amarnath pilgrimage which has drawn thousands of Hindu devotees under unprecedented security for this year's event in India's only Muslim-majority state. "The driver and a pilgrim died on the spot and four other pilgrims in the car...

SRINAGAR, July 29 (2005):- Two soldiers were killed and 13 people, including six journalists, wounded on Friday during a gunbattle between troops and Muslim rebels in Srinagar, the biggest city in Indian Kashmir, witnesses said. The battle began when the militants threw grenades and opened fire at a police post in the heart of the city, forcing shopkeepers to flee the usually crowded commercial hub. "The militants are hiding in two different buildings and we are trying to locate them," Border Security Forces spokesman...

SRINAGAR, July 29 (2005): Suspected Muslim militants killed five Hindu men by slitting their throats in a remote village in Indian Kashmir, police said on Friday. They said three armed men attacked a group of Hindus on Thursday in a forest village some 200 km (125 miles) southwest of Srinagar, the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir state. "It is not clear yet what provoked the attack. We are investigating," a police official said, adding that they were also trying to find out if the victims were from the same family....

MUZAFFARABAD, July 29 (2002): Kashmiri militants said on Monday they had closed down training camps in Pakistan-administered Kashmir on the orders of President Pervez Musharraf and the military. Independent analysts agreed that rebel activity on the Pakistan side of the disputed Himalayan region had been sharply curtailed, but added that camps would be mothballed rather than abandoned by a Pakistan army still nervous about the future. "We have closed down our training camps in Azad (free) Kashmir," said a source close...

SRINAGAR, July 28 (2002): Four civilians and two militants died in fresh separatist violence in India's Jammu and Kashmir state, police said on Sunday. The violence in the Himalayan region came as U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell held talks in India and then Pakistan as part of a South Asia peace mission. The region is at the heart of tensions between nuclear rivals India and Pakistan, who came to the brink of war last month after attacks by what India said were Pakistan-backed Islamic militants. A police...

SRINAGAR, India, July 27 (2002): - Fifteen people were wounded in India's Jammu and Kashmir state on Sunday when a grenade thrown by suspected Muslim rebels at an army patrol missed the target and exploded on a crowded street, police said. Rebel violence has continued in the disputed Himalayan region despite India and Pakistan making efforts to improve ties. "Militants attacked a security patrol with a grenade at Kokernag which missed the target and exploded on the road injuring fifteen civilians," a police official told...

SRINAGAR, July 27 (2002): Four people died and at least seven were wounded on Saturday when unidentified attackers threw a grenade at a crowded market in Kashmir as U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell began a peace mission to South Asia. "Militants hurled a grenade at a security patrol at busy Budgam town. The grenade missed the target and exploded near shops, killing two civilians on the spot," a police official said. Budgam is west of Srinagar, the summer capital of India's Jammu and Kashmir state. No militant...

NEW DELHI, July 27 (2002): U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell promised on Saturday to push for talks on disputed Kashmir between India and Pakistan during his visit to the two countries this weekend, his third since October. But if he had a timetable in mind, he did not reveal it to reporters travelling on his plane on an eight-nation tour of Asia that took him to India on Saturday ahead of Pakistan on Sunday. He also kept details of incentives to himself, though he said he was keen to discuss trade and economic...