Indian security forces have killed three suspected rebels in India-administered Kashmir during a firefight in a national park, the military says. The incident occurred on Monday in the mountains of Dachigam, about 30km east of the disputed region’s main city of Srinagar. “Three terrorists have been neutralised in an intense firefight,” the Indian army said in a statement on social media. “Operation continues.”
The men killed were suspected to be behind the April 22 attack in India-administered Kashmir’s resort town of Pahalgam, which killed 26 people. However, Al Jazeera could not immediately verify their involvement in the April attack, which sparked a four-day military conflict with Pakistan that killed more than 70 people on both sides. A police officer told AFP news agency on condition of anonymity that the three men were all “foreigners”.
Muslim-majority Kashmir has been divided between India and Pakistan since their independence from British rule in 1947, and the South Asian nuclear powers, which both claim Kashmir in full, have fought three wars over its control. Since 1989, Kashmiri rebels have been fighting against Indian rule, demanding independence or the region’s merger with Pakistan. India accuses Pakistan of backing the rebellion, but Islamabad says it only provides diplomatic support to the Kashmiris’ struggle for self-determination.
This month, the United States designated The Resistance Front (TRF), the group accused of being behind the Pahalgam attack, as a “foreign terrorist organisation”. The attack led to a significant escalation of tensions between India and Pakistan, with both countries engaging in airstrikes and other military actions.
India’s Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said New Delhi had ended its military conflict with Pakistan in May as it had met all its objectives and had not responded to any outside pressure. Singh’s remarks during a discussion in parliament on the April 22 attack effectively rejected US President Donald Trump’s claim that he brokered the truce between the two neighbours. “India halted its operation because all the political and military objectives studied before and during the conflict had been fully achieved,” Singh said. “To suggest that the operation was called off under pressure is baseless and entirely incorrect.”
The two sides used fighter jets, missiles, drones and other munitions during the conflict, killing dozens of people, before Trump announced they had agreed to a ceasefire. Pakistan thanked Trump for brokering the agreement, but India said the US had no hand in it and that New Delhi and Islamabad had agreed between themselves to end the fighting.
The conflict between India and Pakistan has significant international implications, with both countries leveraging global developments to strengthen their respective regional positions. China’s military support for Pakistan has grown in quantity and sophistication, with Beijing supplying over 80% of Pakistan’s arms imports from 2020 to 2024. The US has also played a role in the conflict, with Trump’s administration declaring The Resistance Front a Foreign Terrorist Organisation and a proxy of the Pakistan-based terrorist organisation Lashkar-e-Tayyiba.