Three Indian security force personnel were among ten people killed in Indian-administered Kashmir, officials said today.
An Indian border guard was killed and three others injured today in an early morning ambush by Muslim militants in south Kashmir.
The incident took place in the village of Noorbagh, in the Tral district 40 kilometres south of the state summer capital Srinagar, a Border Security Force (BSF) spokesman said.
Militants with assault rifles and hand grenades attacked a BSF vehicle patrol which was led by a commandant.
"One BSF soldier died on the spot, while three others were injured," the spokesman said.
The soldiers returned fire but the militants managed to escape. Reinforcements sealed the village and carried out house-to-house searches.
Kashmir's dominant indigenous militant group Hizbul Mujahedin claimed responsibility for the attack.
"We ambushed the BSF patrol vehicles with rockets, grenades and assault rifles," a Hizbul spokesman said over the telephone.
He claimed half-a-dozen security personnel were either killed or injured.
"We will continue such attacks in the future," he added.
It was the second ambush in three days. Four policemen were killed in a similar attack in the southern Udhampur district on Monday.
In a separate incident today security forces shot dead a militant near Kokernag, 70 kilometres south of here, police said.
A militant and a civilian were killed during a fierce overnight encounter in the village of Malwan in the southern Anantnag district.
In two more encounters in the southern Poonch district two militants and a member of the security forces were killed, police said. Five other security force personnel were injured.
Two more militants and an Indian army soldier were killed elsewhere in the state today.
More than 35,000 people have died in Indian Kashmir since the eruption of an armed militancy in 1989.
There are nearly a dozen militant groups fighting for Kashmir to be allowed to secede from India and either join neighbouring Pakistan or become independent.
AFP