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India accuses Pakistan of cross-border shelling

Three Pakistani soldiers killed in attacks in troubled Khyber
Pakistan's military on Sunday appealed to people in the Khyber tribal region to help security forces defeat militancy, as three soldiers were killed in attacks. The army launched an offensive in the tribal district near the Afghan border early this month after a suicide bomber targeted a border post killing 22 policemen. "We appeal to the people of Khyber to defeat militancy and cooperate with the security forces in identifying militants hiding in the area," a statement from the paramilitary Frontier Corps (FC) said on Sunday. Meanwhile, two soldiers were killed and three others wounded on Sunday when a military convoy was hit by a roadside bomb in Bara town in Khyber, the region's administration chief Tariq Hayat told AFP. In another attack, a soldier died when militants attacked security forces with hand grenades during a search and clearance operation in Swat, the military said. Pakistani troops on Saturday killed 22 militants and destroyed three hideouts in an operation in Khyber's remote Tirrah valley. Authorities also sacked over 350 tribal police officers on Saturday when they failed to report for duty after militant leader Mangal Bagh threatened reprisals against those who did not quit their jobs. Khyber is on the main land and supply route through Pakistan into Afghanistan, where international forces are battling a Taliban insurgency. The semi-autonomous northwest tribal belt has become a stronghold for hundreds of extremists who fled Afghanistan after the US-led invasion toppled the hardline Taliban regime in the neighbouring country in late 2001. Photo courtesy AFP.
by Staff Writers
 Wagah, India (AFP) Sept 12, 2009
 India accused Pakistani frontier troopers Saturday of firing two rockets across the border near a popular tourist attraction in northern Punjab.

The shells exploded in a village farm in Indian Punjab's border Wagah region late Friday but caused no casualties, Himmat Singh, chief of India's Border Security Force (BSF) in Punjab, told reporters.

"We retaliated with machine-gun fire," Singh said.

The shelling occurred near the Indian border crossing of Wagah which is often thronged with tourists who gather on both sides of the border every day to watch a ceremonial military change of Pakistani and Indian guards at sunset.

Singh said border commanders from both sides would meet soon to discuss the alleged shelling.

The Indian military said it was the first such incident in decades in Wagah.

There was no immediate comment available from Islamabad.

Tensions between the neighbours flared in the wake of the Mumbai attacks last November, which India blamed on Pakistan-based militants and "official agencies" of Pakistan, a charge Islamabad has denied.

Exchanges of heavy fire were routine along the disputed border in divided Kashmir until a 2003 ceasefire agreement between nuclear armed India and Pakistan.

Since the Mumbai attacks there have been sporadic small arm exchanges.

An elected Punjab village councillor accused Pakistani soldiers of trying to intimidate an all female paramilitary contingent which was the first to be deployed at the Wagah border.

"Firing from Pakistan is a vicious attempt to demoralise the village folks as well as newly deployed lady soldiers," Baljit Singh, the councillor, said.

India and Pakistan have fought two of their three wars since independence in 1947 over the Himalayan region of Kashmir, which is claimed by both nations.

Wheat-bowl Indian Punjab was the location of a fierce land-air battle during the second war between the countries in 1965.

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