Police say suicide attacker kills 3 soldiers in Pakistan’s part of Kashmir
By APTuesday, January 5, 2010
Bomber kills 3 soldiers in Pakistani Kashmir
MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan — A suicide bomber struck an army facility in the Pakistan-controlled portion of Kashmir on Wednesday, killing at least three soldiers and wounding 11 others, police said.
Javed Iqbal, police chief in the Himalayan region of Kashmir, said the attacker targeted an army barracks near the town of Rawalakot.
Another police official, Zubair Ahmed, said the attacker detonated his explosives after guards stopped him at the barracks gate. He said the dead and wounded had been transported to a military hospital.
More than 500 people have been killed in Pakistan in attacks by militants, many of them targeting the government, since mid-October, when the army launched a major offensive against the Pakistani Taliban’s stronghold of South Waziristan in the northwest.
However, such attacks are rare in Kashmir. The territory is divided between Pakistan and India, and both claim it in its entirety. The two neighbors have fought two of their three wars over Kashmir after gaining independence from Britain in 1947.
