Militants attack Indian army camp in Kashmir

At least six militants attacked an Indian army camp in north Kashmir last night, killing one border guard and wounding another, two weeks after a similar attack killed 19 of its soldiers and ratcheted up tensions between India and Pakistan.

Local reports that two attackers had been killed could not immediately be confirmed.

It came just three days after India claimed to have carried out a “surgical strikes” on suspected militant launch pads across the Line of Control in response to the September 18 attack in an Indian army camp by suspected Pakistani militants.  

Yesterday's attack on the camp of India's 46 Rastriya Rifles in Baramulla, which also houses a unit of the Border Security Force (BSF), started at around 10:30pm and repeated exchanges of fire ensued.

"One BSF personnel was killed and one injured when militants tried to enter an army camp," said local Superintendent of Police Imtiyaz Hussein.

The military said after over two hours of intense gun battle that firing had stopped and that the situation was "contained and under control".

It is not clear yet whether the attackers managed to enter any of the camps. They first reportedly hurled grenades and opened fire at the gate of the army camp and were engaged in a gun battle by both army and BSF soldiers.

A NDTV report said the terrorists are suspected to have entered India across the Jhelum river in Kashmir.

The camps are located at Baramulla town, some 50 kilometres (34 miles) northwest of the Himalayan region's main city of Srinagar.

India blamed Pakistan for the September 18 attack in an army camp in Uri, something Pakistan denies.

Amid massive public anger over the raid, India has sought to isolate Pakistan -- whom it accuses of sponsoring militant groups -- and has managed to persuade nearly all its other neighbours to boycott a regional summit which was to have been held in Islamabad in November.

The two countries, who were separated at birth at the end of British colonial rule in 1947, have fought three full-blown wars in the last seven decades -- including two over Kashmir.