The new violence followed the deaths of 23 people Thursday across Indian Kashmir that marked the bloodiest day since Pakistan and India agreed to resume talks a month ago on all issues including the divided Himalayan territory.

Indian troops, backed by police and para-military forces, have stepped up operations against rebels active in Kashmir since the start of the year.

Counter-insurgency police early Friday shot and killed Mohammed Rafique, also known as Lidder, a senior commander of the hardline al-Umar Mujahedin guerilla group that favours merging the Himalayan region with Pakistan.

Rafique "was killed in a counter-insurgency operation" in downtown Srinagar, the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir, a police spokesman said.

His death was the latest in a series of killings by Indian security forces of leading rebels, including the chief commander of the region's dominant guerilla group, Hizbul Mujahedin, last month. He was shot after he opened fire on police when they ringed a house where he was hiding, the police spokesman said.

The group's supreme commander, Mustaq Zargar, said Rafique had served as al-Umar's operational chief commander and called his death "a big loss to us."

"We will not allow his martyrdom to go waste," Zargar told local newspapers by telephone, naming Khalid Javed as the slain commander's successor.

In another clash in a wooded area in the village of Darwas Behak, near the northern town of Bandipora, six rebels and one soldier were killed, an army spokesman said.

Two militants and three soldiers died in another clash in the southern Kashmir district of Poonch, police said.

Two other militants were killed when security forces intercepted rebels trying to sneak into Indian Kashmir across the heavily militarised Line of Control in Bimbergali in the south of Kashmir.

Officials say there have been at least half a dozen infiltration bids since the nuclear rivals began a ceasefire last November along the line dividing the region.

Meanwhile, police said suspected militants beheaded a Muslim in the central Kashmir district of Budgam on Friday, adding that the motive was unknown.

India and Pakistan are due to hold a first round of the talks February 16-18 in Islamabad with Kashmir among subjects on the agenda.