SRINAGAR: Indian forces killed 11 suspected militants, including seven during a prolonged battle among Himalayan peaks 10,000 feet (3,000 meters) above sea level, in the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir, the army said.
One Indian soldier also was killed in the three-day, high-altitude battle near Kangan, a village 50 kilometers northeast of Srinagar, Lt. Col. Anil Kumar Mathur, the army spokesman, said Sunday. The battle ended Sunday, Mathur told the Associated Press.
Army officials said 13 militants were in the group, many of them Pakistanis and other foreigners associated with the Hizbul Mujahedeen, one of the largest rebel groups active in the Himalayan region.
With winter about to set in, suspected militants are trying to enter Indian Kashmir from Pakistani territory in a major thrust before snow-covered mountain passes become inaccessible, he said.
Four other suspected insurgents were killed in three separate clashes with Indian forces Saturday in the Himalayan region, Mathur said. They included Abu Khubaib, a commander in the key rebel group Lashkar-e-Taiba, in a forest area in Handwara, 90 kilometers north of Srinagar, police said in a statement. There was no independent confirmation of the Indian claims.
The rise in militant activities in the upper reaches of the strategically important Kangan area near the border with Pakistan-administered Kashmir prompted the authorities to go on the offensive.
