Rebels kill 11 in police post attack

Suspected Islamic rebels attacked a police post in Indian-controlled Kashmir, killing nine officers and two civilians, police said today.

The attack was in the mountainous Gool area of Udhampur district, nearly 95 miles north of Jammu, the winter capital of Indian-held Kashmir, a police officer said.

Suspected guerrillas killed an armed police guard outside and barged into the police post at around 11.30pm. They then sprayed bullets and killed another eight police officers and two civilians inside the post.

Some police officers returned fire, but the attackers escaped.

The attack lasted nearly an hour

A man who identified himself as Jamil Ahmed and claimed to be a spokesman of the Jamiat-ul-Mujahedeen rebel group called a news agency office in Jammu and said the attack was jointly carried out by his group and another rebel organisation, the Harkat-i-Jehadi Islami.

Police said the rebel attack was apparently in retaliation for the killing of Amanullah, a suspected leader of the Pakistan-based Hizb-ul-Mujahadeen group, in the region last week by Indian security forces.

It was the second major assault by suspected rebels in the Jammu region of Indian-held Kashmir in the past three days.

On Friday, suspected rebels killed seven people, including three police officers, in the town of Punch.

More than a dozen militant groups have been fighting for Kashmir’s independence from India or its merger with neighbouring Pakistan since 1989. More than 61,000 people have been killed in the conflict.

India accuses Pakistan of training and arming the guerrillas, a charge Islamabad denies. India and Pakistan have fought two wars over control of Kashmir since they won independence from Britain in 1947.