Posted on 05/18/2002 5:30:28 PM PDT by RCW2001
Sunday May 19, 1:50 AM
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India and Pakistan stepped up artillery clashes across their borders in Kashmir, as 20 people, mostly suspected Muslim rebels, were killed in the troubled Himalayan territory, officials said.
Reports of artillery duels came from the frontier zones of Kupwara and Uri in northern Kashmir as India ordered the expulsion of Pakistan's Delhi-based high commissioner (ambassador), Ashraf Jehangir Qazi.
Defense ministry officials in Srinagar, the summer capital of Indian Kashmir, said the border clashes were intensifying.
Earlier reports said the rival armies were fighting in Samba, Kathua, Heeranagar and the zones of Rajouri in southern Kashmir but later Saturday the clashes spread across the bilateral borders to the state's northern sectors.
"We are retaliating and in the process we have inflicted considerable damage on the other side," a highly-placed Indian defence ministry source told AFP in New Delhi.
"Our aim is simple: We have to stop these boys (Pakistan-based Islamic militants) from entering Kashmir. Enough is enough," the source said as residents of Uri, the last Indian civilian outpost in Kashmir, spoke of explosions.
At least one person was killed and eight injured in late night shelling in Uri.
India accuses Pakistan of fomenting separatist violence in Kashmir. Islamabad denies the allegation but offers diplomatic and moral support to what it argues is the Kashmiris' legitimate struggle for self-rule in the Himalayan territory.
The two rivals have fought two of their three wars over Kashmir since their independence in 1947 and came close to a fourth conflict when India launched a military assault to dislodge Pakistani forces from Kashmir's strategic peaks in 1999.
The Press Trust of India said that two-way shelling has sent some 12,000 people fleeing from their homes in Indian Kashmir's border villages since Thursday.
Earlier Saturday in Islamabad, Pakistani officials said at least four people were injured in the shelling across the Line of Control into Pakistani Kashmir Saturday.
The bombardment began early in the day along the de facto Indo-Pakistan border in the troubled Himalayan region.
Police told AFP that among those killed since Friday were two security force personnel and two members of India's Indo-Tibetan Border Police, two of them shot by Muslim rebels.
The Indian security force, meanwhile, shot dead six Muslim rebels in the border districts of Rajouri and Poonch on Saturday, police added.
The dead militants belonged to Al Badar Mujahedin and Jaish-e-Mohammed -- which India blames for an attack on its national parliament in December that left 14 dead including the raiders.
Another six militants have been killed in separate encounters elsewhere in Kashmir since late Friday, police said.
In southern Pulwama district suspected militants shot dead a former colleague and killed a bus driver by slitting his throat.
Another civilian was shot dead by suspected rebels in northern Kupwara district.
Meanwhile, a border guard was injured in a landmine explosion in the highway village of Pybug in southern Anantnag district Saturday. Police said a security force vehicle was extensively damaged in the explosion.
Kashmir's dominant militant group, Hizbul Mujahedin, claimed responsibilty for the blast, which it said had killed or injured 10 security force personnel.
More than 35,000 people have died in Kashmir since 1989 when Muslim rebels launched an anti-Indian rebellion in the region.
What is that, the official al Qaeda MO? Flight attendants, businessmen, reporters, bus drivers...
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