RAWALPINDI, May 31 (2006): The Pakistan-based commander of Kashmir's biggest guerrilla group rejected on Wednesday an appeal by India's prime minister for militants to return to their homes, saying New Delhi must first leave the territory. Syed Salahuddin, leader of Hizb-ul-Mujahideen guerrilla group, said Manmohan Singh's call for separatist militants to return to Indian-held Kashmir was a trick. "The home is my home. Nobody can stop to go or enter the home. The question is the aggressor should get out," Salahuddin...

SRINAGAR, May 30 (2006): At least 15 school children died in Indian Kashmir on Tuesday after their boat capsized in the region's largest lake, police and army officials said. The children were on an trip when their boat went down the Wular lake, about 65 km (40 miles) north of Srinagar, Kashmir's summer capital. A teacher and an office assistant also drowned. "The children were on a joy trip on an Indian navy boat when some of them shifted to one side of the boat causing the mishap," army spokesman lieutenant...

SRINAGAR, May 30 (2006): A policeman was killed and 21 people wounded in a string of attacks in Indian Kashmir on Tuesday as India and Pakistan began talks on how to end such attacks in the Himalayan region. The policeman was killed and four people, including two civilians, wounded when suspected Islamist militants lobbed a grenade at a police patrol vehicle in a crowded market in the heart of Srinagar, Kashmir's summer capital. A spokesman for the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad militant group claimed responsibility...

SRINAGAR, May 26 (2006): Kashmir's chief Muslim priest and leading separatist on Friday dismissed talks between New Delhi and local political leaders as a useless "seminar" that failed to achieve anything. After two days of talks with mainly pro-Indian politicians -- separatists boycotted the round table -- Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on Thursday he had asked them to set up five panels to look at Kashmir's future, including one on "special status". But Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, the Kashmir Valley's chief Islamic...

SRINAGAR, May 25 (2006): At least three Indian tourists, including a child, were killed on Thursday when suspected Islamist militants threw a grenade at their bus in Kashmir's main city, Srinagar, police and witnesses said. The attack, which also wounded seven tourists, came as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh wound up two days of talks in the city with local political leaders over the fate of the Himalayan region, split between India and Pakistan and claimed by both. Militants fighting Indian rule had called a strike...

SRINAGAR, May 24 (2006): After years of war, it was the best tourist season the shikara boatmen of Kashmir's Dal Lake could remember. Until Prime Minister Manmohan Singh came to town on Wednesday for two days of peace talks. Security forces and a general strike effectively closed Srinagar, the summer capital, forcing tourists to stay inside. "We had never had such a good season," said Bashir Ahmed, 28, a boatman who takes tourists for a ride on Dal Lake -- the city's main tourist centre and home to its world famous...

SRINAGAR, May 24 (2006):Prime Minister Manmohan Singh appealed on Wednesday to Kashmiri militants in Pakistan to "come home", at the same time telling his troops to be more humane as he pressed forward with peace talks. Despite some of the tightest security in years in one of the world's most militarised cities, Islamist rebels set off five grenades in the summer capital, Srinagar, injuring at least 19 civilians and nine policemen. None of the attacks were close to Singh's talks and such raids are routine in the...

SRINAGAR, May 23 (2006): A suicide bomber blew himself up as an Indian security patrol passed the home of a hardline Kashmiri separatist on Tuesday, the eve of a visit by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to the region, police said. At least 25 Border Security Force (BSF) troops were injured, four critically, in the blast that ripped apart a bus carrying the soldiers, BSF spokesman Vikram Singh Manhas said. A police spokesman said the bomber was in a car packed with explosives. "The car was blown to shreds," he said late...

SRINAGAR, May 22 (2006): Suspected Islamist rebels launched four grenade attacks in Indian Kashmir's main city on Monday as political separatists spurned an invitation for talks with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. One person was killed and 24 injured, a modest toll by Kashmir's standards of daily violence, but the number of attacks was unusually high. Singh will visit the troubled region for two days from Wednesday to chair a roundtable with Kashmiris -- the second such event to be held this year. Islamist rebels,...

SRINAGAR, May 21 (2006): Eight people including two Islamist militants were killed and more than 20 wounded when a gunfight broke out at a rally in the heart of Indian Kashmir's main city on Sunday, police and witnesses said. Police said militants, one of them in police uniform, sneaked into a gathering of hundreds of Congress Party supporters in Srinagar and opened fire. "We eliminated two militants," said A.P. Maheshwari, Inspector General of the federal police force who led the operation against the...