SRINAGAR - Indian security forces on Sunday attacked a hideout of suspected rebels in the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir, killing two in a shootout, an army spokesman said.There were no government casualties in the raid on a house in Ashmander, a village in Pulwama district, said spokesman Lt. Col. V.K. Batra. Ashmander is 60 kilometers south of Srinagar, the summer capital of India’s Jammu-Kashmir state.
Batra said those killed belonged to Hizbul Mujahedeen, one of nearly a dozen insurgent groups that have been fighting since 1989 for Kashmir’s independence from India or its merger with Pakistan. There was no independent confirmation of the army’s claim.
Also Sunday, government forces killed two other suspected rebels in separate clashes in the Indian portion of Kashmir, the spokesman said.