Background of the clashes
- Indian police official Vijay Kumar told reporters that the clashes broke out last Wednesday following an ambush that resulted in the killing of three Indians, two soldiers and a policeman, while they were patrolling a forested area in southern Kashmir..
- The ambush was followed by an exchange of fire between the attackers and Indian forces.
- Days after the ambush, the bodies of three other Indian soldiers who had gone missing during the armed clash were found..
- Following the ambush, the Indian army used helicopters and drones to chase the attackers and launch air strikes on the forested area, according to the same source..
- Kumar explained that two rebels were killed in the clashes, one of them named Uzair Khan, a local leader in the Lashkar-e-Taiba group based in Pakistan..
- He added, “We found the body of a second fighter,” stressing that the area had been cleared of rebels..
Decades of conflict
- Kashmir is a region located in the Himalayas and inhabited by a Muslim majority. It is divided between India and Pakistan, which have been fighting over sovereignty over the entire region since their independence in 1947..
- This region was the cause of two of the three wars the two countries have fought since then.
- The Indian-administered part of the country has witnessed more than three decades of unrest that has resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands.
- New Delhi accuses Islamabad of supporting separatists, which the Pakistani authorities deny.
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