Five killed in suspected rebel ambush in Kashmir

Three Indian soldiers and their two civilian porters were killed in a rebel ambush in Indian-controlled Kashmir, officials said.

Police said rebels sprayed bullets at an army vehicle carrying troops close to the highly militarised line of control near the resort town of Gulmarg on Thursday night.

The de facto frontier divides the disputed Kashmir between India and Pakistan, which they both claim in its entirety.

Two soldiers and two civilians working as porters with the Indian military were killed and three other soldiers were injured, police said. One soldier later died at a hospital, they said. The military said it was a brief firefight and gave no other details.

There was no independent confirmation of the incident.

On Sunday, gunmen fatally shot at least seven people and injured five others working on a strategic tunnel project near another resort town of Sonamarg. Police blamed militants fighting against Indian rule for decades for the attack.

Militants in the Indian-administered part of Kashmir have been fighting New Delhi’s rule since 1989. Many Muslim Kashmiris support the rebels’ goal of uniting the territory, either under Pakistani rule or as an independent country.

India insists the Kashmir militancy is Pakistan-sponsored terrorism. Pakistan denies the charge, and many Kashmiris consider it a legitimate freedom struggle.

Tens of thousands of civilians, rebels and government forces have been killed in the conflict.

Nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan have fought two of their three wars over Kashmir since they gained independence from British colonial rule in 1947.