ISLAMABAD, 8 May 2003 — At least 20 people were reported killed in disputed Kashmir yesterday as violence flared ahead of a visit by a top US official to Pakistan and India aimed at encouraging signs of a thaw between the nuclear-armed rivals.
Pakistan authorities said seven people were killed in Indian firing into Pakistan-ruled Kashmir. Mehmood-ul-Hassan, an official in Muzaffarabad, the capital of Azad Kashmir, said the deaths were caused by a mortar bomb that hit a vehicle in the Neelum Valley, about 70 km to the northeast.
Another official, who did not want to be identified, said two soldiers and a family with two young children were among those killed after “extensive” Indian artillery, mortar and small arms fire. He said seven other people were wounded.
In Indian Kashmir, police said two soldiers were killed and five were wounded in an ambush by militants. Elsewhere, nine militants and two other soldiers were killed in separate gun battles.
The violence comes despite signs of a thaw in tensions between Pakistan and India, which went to the brink of a fourth war last year, and just ahead of a visit to the region by US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage.
Armitage who arrived in Islamabad last night will hold talks with Pakistani leaders today, before heading to Kabul tomorrow and New Delhi later. Armitage said before leaving Washington he would try to encourage the India-Pakistan thaw, but stressed that Washington did not see itself as a mediator.
He is expected to seek Pakistan’s assurances that it is serious about reining in infiltration by militants into Kashmir and resurgent Taleban militants threatening the fragile government in Afghanistan and the US-led coalition there.
