Lashkar fidayeen kills 2 soldiers

POONCH, MARCH 5. In the fourth major attack since the third extension of ceasefire in Jammu and Kashmir, a suicide squad of militants today stormed an Army camp in Poonch district killing two soldiers and wounding eight others, official sources said.

One of the four fidayeen (suicide squad) militants was also killed in the heavy exchange of gunfire triggered after the ultras stormed the camp housing the 17 Rashtriya Rifles at Sadichivana in Surankote at around 3.40 p.m., they said.

Another militant was injured in the gunbattle which lasted several hours but managed to escape with the help of his accomplices, they said.

The Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba owned up the attack. A spokesperson of the outfit called up news organisations here to say that one of the militants was killed while rest of the group returned to their hideouts safely.

The Army launched a flushing operation soon after the incident.

In a similar attack at Baramulla in north Kashmir yesterday, four soldiers, including two Junior Commissioned Officers (JCOs), and two militants of LeT were killed.

In other incidents of violence, three militants of the Jaish-e- Mohammad (JeM) and a boy were killed and four wounded in the Valley since last evening. Security forces averted a tragedy with timely detection of a landmine on the Srinagar-Baramulla national highway, a police spokesman said.

A five-year-old boy was killed and his mother injured when they were caught in a shootout between militants and counter- insurgents at village Chattibandi in Baramulla district in north Kashmir last night.

Two JeM militants were killed in an encounter with a joint patrol party of the Army and police in the Sogam area of Kupwara district in north Kashmir.

- PTI

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