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Ten Killed As Commandoes Storm Kashmir's Main Airport
SRINAGAR (News Agencies) - A group of heavily commandoes tried to storm the high-security Srinagar airport in Indian Kashmir Tuesday, triggering a shootout in which 10 people, including all six attackers, were killed.
A spokesman for the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba outfit said it had dispatched the six-member "fidayeen" (commando) squad to attack the main security checkpoint, around 500 meters (549 yards) from the airport building at 2:45 pm (0915 GMT).
"Six of our men broke the airport security cordon," spokesman Abu Usama said
A Kashmir police spokesman said the attackers managed to get through the first security point but had then been gunned down by members of the paramilitary Central Reserve Police Force.
"Six militants have been killed, as well as two civilians and two CRPF personnel," the spokesman said, adding that nine police guards, including three women constables, had been wounded.
The attackers apparently stole a green jeep and were wearing the uniforms of the police's counter-insurgency wing - the Special Operations Group - when they approached the checkpoint.
Srinagar airport serves both civil and military flights and is the most tightly guarded airport in India.
The attack came during the run-up to India's Republic Day on January 26th - a period that traditionally witnesses stepped up activity in Kashmir.
The Lashkar-e-Taiba has claimed responsibility for several attacks on high-profile installations in the past.
They are usually carried out by small squads of heavily armed commandoes who attempt to break into the target and then engage the security forces until they are eventually shot dead.
The assault on the airport came a day after Indian Home Minister L.K. Advani warned that opposition operations in Kashmir were jeopardizing the future of the government's unilateral ceasefire in the restive region.
"If such activities go on, then we will have to see how and in what manner the peace initiative by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee will continue," Advani said.
Vajpayee ordered a month-long suspension of counter-insurgency operations against groups in Kashmir from November 27th. The ceasefire was later extended for another four weeks until January 26th, when it will be reviewed.
New Delhi is also considering requests by a team of Kashmiri political leaders to visit Islamabad for talks with Pakistani leaders and Muslim groups.
In another significant step for the nascent peace process, Pakistan's military ruler, Pervez Musharraf, met Monday with India's High Commissioner in Islamabad and stressed the need for the "early resumption" of the frozen Indo-Pakistan dialogue over Kashmir.
The meeting was the first known top-level political contact between the South Asian nuclear rivals since they came to the brink of their fourth war on the heights of Kargil in Kashmir in mid-1999.
On Tuesday, Kashmir Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah ruled out any bilateral talks until Islamabad "stopped exporting terrorism."
Abdullah escaped an assassination attempt on Sunday when attackers fired two grenades at a meeting he was addressing.
A bloody campaign in the Indian-administered part of Muslim-majority Kashmir has left more than 34,000 people dead over the past 12 years.
India accuses Pakistan of fomenting the insurgency.
Islamabad, which holds the northern third of Kashmir, denies the allegations but provides open moral and diplomatic support to Kashmiri opposition.
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