Indian troops yesterday killed four suspected militants who entered an air force base near the border with Pakistan and exchanged fire with security forces, officials and news reports said. At least two Indian soldiers were also killed in an attack seen as an attempt to undo progress made in the relationship between rivals India and Pakistan.
The attack on Pathankot Air Force Station began before dawn, and by late morning it appeared that the violence had ended with the killing of the gunmen. However, just two hours later, fresh gunfire erupted at the base.
A helicopter could be seen at about noon firing at an area inside the base, which is about 430km north of New Delhi. Shots could also be heard from inside the base. No other details were available, and telephone calls to the Indian Ministry of Defence and air force officials went unanswered.
At least four gunmen entered the living quarters of the base early yesterday, but were unable to penetrate the area where combat helicopters and other military equipment are kept, air force spokeswoman Rochelle D’Silva said.
The Press Trust of India news agency cited police as saying that four attackers were killed following an hours-long gunfight, and that police started an operation to clear a wider area of other possible intruders.
The attack was viewed by many in India as an attempt to unravel recent progress in the country’s relationship with archrival Pakistan. The violence came just a week after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi made an unannounced visit to Pakistan to meet with Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.
Modi’s visit was seen as a potential sign of thawing relations between the two nuclear-armed neighbors. The two leaders also held an unscheduled meeting at the Paris climate change talks last month.
“These kinds of attacks are nothing new and have generally been the outcome of the dispute of India and Pakistan over Kashmir,” said Noor Ahmed Baba, a political scientist at Central University in Indian Kashmir’s capital, Srinagar.
The Himalayan region of Kashmir is divided between India and Pakistan, but is claimed in its entirety by both.
Baba said that there were elements in both countries that would like to see the peace process fizzle out, and that all sides must “exhibit political maturity and sagacity to defeat the vested interests.”
Ahead of Modi’s visit to Pakistan, the national security advisers of both countries had met in Thailand to discuss issues including peace and security, terrorism, the disputed region of Kashmir and ways to maintain peace along the countries’ shared border.
The foreign secretaries of both nations are scheduled to meet in Islamabad later this month.
Pathankot, in Punjab state, is on the highway that connects India’s insurgency-wracked Jammu & Kashmir state with the rest of the country. It is also close to India’s border with Pakistan.
Police said they suspected the gunmen who entered the air force base were militants, and were investigating whether they had come from the Indian portion of Kashmir or from Pakistan. Rebels routinely stage attacks in Indian-held Kashmir, where they have been fighting since 1989 for an independent Kashmir or its merger with Pakistan.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique