TWENTY-three people were killed in Indian Kashmir, including four soldiers and a top counter-insurgent in the bloodiest day of fighting since the killing of a top rebel commander a fortnight ago, police said today.
Four soldiers, including an officer, and an Islamic militant were killed today in a suicide attack on an army camp in north Kashmir, police said.
The suicide attack that injured six more soldiers took place at 5.30am local time today (1000 AEST) in Nowgam area, 100km north of Kashmir's summer capital Srinagar, a police spokesman said.
One of the attackers was shot dead, while troops were combing the densely forested region to hunt down his accomplices, police said. The army camp is very close to the disputed Line of Control (LoC) - the de facto border which divides Kashmir into Indian and Pakistani administered regions.
Last week, Indian troops said they had killed five militants in the same area, foiling their bid to infiltrate Indian-administered Kashmir. In another attack, three civilians were killed and 14 others injured, including two policemen, when militants detonated a landmine on the main highway at Bijbehara, 50km south of Srinagar, police said. The attack took place when an army convoy was passing on the highway. An army vehicle suffered some damage.
A former rebel commander, Mohammed Yusuf alias Kukkay Parrey, who broke ranks and joined Indian security forces to fight militancy in Kashmir, was also killed today in an attack on his motorcade, police said. The attack, which also killed two of his associates and injured six others, took place in his home constituency Hajin, 40km north of Srinagar.
Yusuf led the Awami League, the political wing of Ikhwan - a pro-government militant organisation which was formed in 1994 by Parrey to assist security forces in counter-insurgency operations. Before joining politics in 1996, Yusuf headed Ikhwan. He was one of the top targets on the hit-list of militants.
Elsewhere in Kashmir, Indian security forces overnight shot dead 10 suspected Islamic militants in three different incidents, a police spokesman said. Two more people, including a retired policeman, were killed by suspected militants elsewhere in Kashmir today, police said. The latest killings bring to at least 167 the number of people who have died in Kashmir in an explosion of violence since Indian troops shot dead top rebel commander Gazi Baba in Srinagar on August 30. Baba, a Pakistani, had been on the list of most wanted rebels after India accused him of masterminding an attack on its parliament in December 2001 that killed 15 people, including the five attackers, and triggered a military standoff with Pakistan.
In another overnight incident, Indian troops surrounded a village in the Sumbhal area of northern Baramulla district after receiving a tip-off about the presence of three rebels. "As they (army soldiers) closed in on a house where the three militants had taken refuge the besieged militants opened fire," the spokesman said, adding that troops returned the fire and killed all three rebels.
In a separate incident, four militants were killed in Tangdar area of Baramulla district while trying to cross into India-administered Kashmir from the Pakistan-administered zone, he said. Another three militants were killed and three Indian soldiers injured in the Kalaroos area of Kupwara district, he said. Police in Kashmir also said today that Pakistani troops had shelled the Karna sector of Kupwara district along the LoC about 130km north-west of Srinagar.
More than 38,000 people have died in Indian Kashmir since the launch of an anti-Indian insurgency in the region in 1989 by Muslim militants. Separatists put the toll between 80,000 and 100,000.
WASHINGTON - More people were killed by land mines during the continuing conflict in Chechnya last year than anywhere else in the world, a watchdog group said Tuesday. The International Campaign to Ban Landmines, which won the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize, reported that 5,695 people were killed by land mines in Chechnya in 2002, more than double the 2,140 casualties a year earlier. The group said Russian troops and Chechen rebels both use mines in the breakaway Russian region.
"Fighting, replete with massive violations of human rights and laws of war, including widespread use of mines by both sides, continues," the group said.
Overall, the group reported progress in its campaign. For example, 69 countries have destroyed 52 million mines in recent years.
"Progress on the land mine issue remains firm," said Jody Williams, who shared the Nobel prize with the group she helped create. "Use is down dramatically. The amount of money given for mine clearance is up."
A massive mine-clearing effort in Afghanistan is having the desired effect, lowering the toll from mines from 1,445 in 2001 to 1,286 last year, still the world's second-deadliest toll.
About $64 million was spent last year on mine-clearing operations, four times greater than in 2001, after U.S.-led forces ousted the Taliban government.
The group said 136 countries, including Afghanistan, had ratified a treaty to ban land mines. The agreement awaits ratification in another 12. The United States, Russia and China are among the 47 countries that have yet to sign the treaty.
The Bush administration is reviewing the U.S. policy toward land mines. The International Campaign to Ban Landmines said the administration had stockpiled mines to use in the recent Iraq war but did not deploy them.
Still, the number of reported deaths from mines in Iraq, which continued to deploy them until the U.S. invasion earlier this year, rose from 360 in 2001 to 457 in 2002.
Six governments used land mines in 2002, down from nine in 2001 and 13 in 2000, the group said. This year, only two countries - Myanmar and Russia - continued to use mines on a regular basis, the group said.
An official in Chechnya's Moscow-backed government disputed the casualty figures, though he said authorities do not have their own numbers, the Interfax news agency reported.
"I think that the organization's data are extremely exaggerated," Interfax quoted Chechnya's Deputy Interior Minister Akhmed Dakayev as saying. "We do not have any separate statistics related to land-mine victims, but official data indicate that far less people were killed or injured (by land mines) in 2002, as compared with the figure provided in the report."
The number of deaths in Myanmar, also known as Burma, doubled from 57 in 2001 to 114 in 2002. The Burmese military has been accused of forcing people to walk in front of patrols in suspected minefields, so-called atrocity de-mining.
Another country that experienced a sharp increase in deaths was Colombia, where both rebel forces and paramilitary troops use mines. The number of casualties rose from 216 in 2001 to 530 in 2002.
The report found that 11,700 people around the world were reported killed by mines last year, including 2,649 children and 192 women. The advocacy group said the total is higher because civilians are killed in areas with no help and no way to communicate, so their deaths are not reported.
Nine of the world's 15 current land mine producers are in Asia: China, India, Myanmar, Nepal, North Korea, South Korea, Pakistan, Singapore and Vietnam. Nepal was added to the list this year after the government in Katmandu acknowledged producing mines.
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On the Net:
International Campaign to Ban Landmines: http://www.icbl.org
PATNA Sept. 8. Twelve police personnel, including the officer-in-charge of the Chutia police station, all travelling in a jeep, were today killed in a landmine blast triggered by naxalites near Dabua Mod, 90 km from Sasaram, the headquarters of Rohtas district.
The police officer, Vijay Kumar Tudu, recently transferred was on his way to join duty at Tilauthu, when the incident took place. The hand of the two banned outfits, MCC(I) and the PWG, is suspected in the blast. The naxalites took away six rifles, a revolver and some ammunition.
Five policemen were killed and two injured in a landmine blast believed
to be triggered by naxalites near Tadgaon in Bhamragar of Gadchiroli
district, police said in Nagpur on Friday.
The blast occurred when the policemen, during an intensive patrolling
in the forest got down to "clear the road" approaching a small bridge,
Inspector General of Police, Nagpur range, Pankaj Gupta said.
The bodies of the policemen killed in the blast has been recovered and
brought to the district headquarters, he added.
The two injured cops, head constable Kaliram, 34, and constable Devaji,
26, were sent to Gadchiroli Civil hospital for treatment.
The deceased were identified as Pandu Tukka Duga, 27, Pandurang Atram,
27, Rajeshwar Gawade, 23, Deoraj Tapole, 27, and Manohar Gawade, 22.