JAMMU, July 26 (2004): Separatist rebels decapitated a 55-year-old man and his two children in Indian Kashmir because they suspected them of being informers for security forces, police said on Monday. In another incident, separatists threw a grenade in a government hospital in northern Kashmir, wounding 26 civilians and two soldiers. Police said the rebels had targeted soldiers who visited the hospital in Baramulla for treatment. Authorities say the guerrillas could be trying to scupper peace moves between India and...

JAMMU, July 21 (2004): Suspected separatist rebels ambushed a police patrol in Indian Kashmir, killing four policemen, police said on Wednesday. The latest attack came as the foreign ministers of India and Pakistan held talks on the sidelines of a regional conference in Islamabad. The guerrillas opened fire on the police team in Doda district 170 km (110 miles) east of Jammu, the winter capital of the restive Himalayan region late on Tuesday. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack so far. Police said...

JAMMU, July 20 (2004): Suspected Muslim insurgents killed a retired soldier and four members of his family, including his five-year-old son, in Indian Kashmir on Tuesday, police said. The gunmen stormed the home of the ex-soldier in Gurdian village, north of the state's winter capital Jammu and gunned down those inside, a police officer said. Two women were among the dead. Violence in the scenic region, the cause of two wars between India and Pakistan, has escalated in the last two months as New Delhi and Islamabad...

SRINAGAR, July 19 (2004): The deputy chief minister of Indian Kashmir escaped an attempt on his life on Monday by Muslim militants, the second in a week, police said. Five people were killed and more than 40 wounded in an grenade explosion at a public meeting being addressed by Mangat Ram Sharma in Duru in southern Kashmir. Two other ministers sitting on the podium were also unharmed, a police officer said. "I saw a huge red flash before I fell down. Policemen carried me to an ambulance which was packed with injured...

SRINAGAR, July 13 (2004): The deputy chief minister of Indian Kashmir escaped an attempt on his life on Tuesday when a grenade fired at his motorcade by suspected Muslim rebels hit an escort car and exploded on the road, police said. Violence has spiralled this month in the troubled region in what officials say is a bid by separatist guerrillas to disrupt peace moves between India and Pakistan, which have vowed to resolve peacefully their half-century-long dispute over Kashmir. Tuesday's attack came as Deputy Chief...

SRINAGAR, July 7 (2004): The head of Kashmir's main separatist group resigned on Wednesday to help reunify its moderate and hardline factions, a move that is likely to delay resumption of peace talks with New Delhi. Moulana Abbas Ansari, chairman of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference, handed over charge temporarily to Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, Kashmir's chief cleric, a Hurriyat spokesman said. Farooq would lead efforts to reunify the moderate and the hardline factions, and the alliance would subsequently choose a new...

SONAPINDI POST, July 4 (2004):Troops were on high alert along the Kashmir border to stop militant groups pushing in rebels from Pakistan before New Delhi fenced off the frontier, the army said on Sunday. India has nearly completed fencing the frontier in disputed Kashmir to stop incursions by militants. The fence covers 500 km (310 miles) of the 740-km (460-mile) ceasefire line dividing Kashmir between the nuclear-armed neighbours. The rest of the frontier is too inaccessible to fence. "In view of the fencing along...