Srinagar/Jammu, Sep 13 : Seven militants were killed and eight security personnel injured on Thursday in three separate gun battles in Jammu and Kashmir, with three dying close to the Line of Control (LoC), authorities said.
While three militants were killed in Kupwara district, two each were shot dead in Reasi and Sopore, military officials said.
Soldiers from the Jammu and Kashmir Rifles noticed suspicious movements along the LoC in Dat Gali area of Kupwara's Keran sector and challenged a small group trying to sneak into India, triggering a gun battle.
"Three terrorists were killed. Their bodies are lying close to the border fence and have not been recovered yet," a Defence Ministry source said. The area was still being searched.
Two militants were killed in Arampore area in Sopore town.
Police said the security forces, including Rashtriya Rifles, the Special Operations Group and the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), cordoned off the area in the morning after being tipped off about the gunmen.
"As the cordon was tightened, the militants opened fire," a police officer said.
Two others were killed in Reasi district after an Army operation that began early in the day, General Officer Commanding (GOC) Major General Arvind Bhatia said.
He said the militants had recently infiltrated into Jammu and Kashmir from Pakistan. Eight security personnel, including a Deputy Superintendent of Police, were injured in the fighting in Kakriyal village near the Mata Vaishno Devi University.
The dead were among the three militants who had opened fire on the Jammu-Srinagar highway in Udhampur district from a truck before escaping on Wednesday.
The Army, police and CRPF tracked down the militants using drones, helicopters and other surveillance gadgets in the forests of Jhajar and adjoining areas.
Those injured in the Wednesday militant attack included a CRPF trooper. Once the militants were discovered, the villagers were evacuated before the final assault on the militants was mounted.
A villager earlier told the security forces that on Wednesday night the three armed militants entered his home, changed their clothes, took away biscuits and water and left.
Traffic on the national highway between Nagrota and Jhajar Kotli was suspended on Thursday. Schools in the area were also closed.
The police on Wednesday detained the driver and helper of the truck. An AK-47 rifle and three magazines were recovered.
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El Fasher (AP): Some 70 people were killed in an attack on the only functional hospital in the besieged city of El Fasher in Sudan, the chief of the World Health Organisation said on Sunday, part of a series of attacks coming as the African nation's civil war escalated in recent days.
The attack on the Saudi Teaching Maternal Hospital, which local officials blamed on the rebel Rapid Support Forces, came as the group has seen apparent battlefield losses to the Sudanese military and allied forces under the command of army chief Gen Abdel-Fattah Burhan. That includes Burhan appearing near a burning oil refinery north of Khartoum on Saturday that his forces said they seized from the RSF.
International mediation attempts and pressure tactics, including a US assessment that the RSF and its proxies are committing genocide and sanctions targeting Burhan, have not halted the fighting.
In the Saudi hospital attack in El Fasher, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus offered the death toll in a post on the social platform X.
Officials and others in the capital of North Darfur province had cited a similar figure Saturday, but Ghebreyesus is the first international source to provide a casualty number. Reporting on Sudan is incredibly difficult given communication challenges and exaggerations by both the RSF and the Sudanese military.
“The appalling attack on Saudi Hospital in El Fasher, Sudan, led to 19 injuries and 70 deaths among patients and companions,” Ghebreyesus wrote. “At the time of the attack, the hospital was packed with patients receiving care.”
Another health facility in Al Malha also was attacked Saturday, he added.
“We continue to call for a cessation of all attacks on health care in Sudan, and to allow full access for the swift restoration of the facilities that have been damaged,” he wrote. “Above all, Sudan's people need peace. The best medicine is peace.”
Ghebreyesus did not identify who launched the attack, though local officials had blamed the RSF for the assault.
The RSF and Sudan's military began fighting each other in April 2023. Their conflict has killed more than 28,000 people, forced millions to flee their homes and left some families eating grass in a desperate attempt to survive as famine sweeps parts of the country.
Other estimates suggest a far higher death toll in the civil war.