120 Whither Kashmir? (Part II) - Islamabad Policy Research Institute

102 IPRI Factfile
• January 6 2010: At least three soldiers were killed and 11 injured in
a suicide bombing outside an army barracks in Pakistaniadministered
Kashmir. Pakistani-administered-Kashmir has been
largely free of violence over the years and has been said the incident
was a 'rare attack', although recently attacks have been on the rise.
Eight Shia Muslims were killed in a bombing last month. In
November, three would-be suicide bombers blew themselves up in
the regional capital, Muzaffarabad, as they were chased by police.
The three men did not appear to be Kashmiris, police said. In June,
a suicide bomber killed two soldiers and injured three others in
Muzaffarabad. Wednesday's bombing is the first outside
Muzaffarabad and comes a day after Pakistani President Asif Ali
Zardari visited the area. It has raised fears the Taliban may be
trying to expand their area of operations.
• January 7 2010: A drawn-out gunfight between two militants and
Indian security forces ended Thursday afternoon after the
insurgents were gunned down inside a hotel in Srinagar's Lal
Chowk area. One police officer was killed in the attack and one
bystander succumbed to his injuries. The security forces also
rescued 10 people from a neighboring hotel in what is a crowded
business district in the city. Officials said that one of the gunmen
belonged to the banned Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-
Taiba. A pro-Pakistan militant group, Jamiat-ul-Mujahedin, claimed
it was behind the assault. However, Indian police pointed the finger
at the Pakistan-based group Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT). A terrorist
killed during the Lal Chowk encounter had a pre-paid mobile
connection used for communicating with his handlers in Pakistan.
The terrorist, identified as Saifullah Qari, believed to be in his midtwenties,
had kept the mobile connection with him for a long
period, and had meant to use it only during "operations", official
sources said. He was one of the two militants gunned down by
security forces, to bring to end a 22-hour siege in the heart of
Srinagar. This militant incident in Srinagar is almost two years after
a consistent decline in violence. 'Several rebel groups have been
waging a separatist struggle in Indian Kashmir since 1989, wanting
the Muslim-majority region to either merge with Pakistan or
become independent. But violence began declining after India and
Pakistan began a peace process in 2004. The region is now much