Violence Flares in Kashmir

Fifteen people, most of them Muslim rebels, have been killed in separatist violence in India’s Jammu and Kashmir state, police said Friday.

They said security forces killed three suspected Islamic militants as they tried to slip into the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir from Pakistan early Friday.

The gun battle took place on the Line of Control, which separates the Indian- and Pakistani-held areas of Kashmir, in Rajouri district southwest of Srinagar, the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir.

Later Friday, a policeman and a militant were killed in another gun battle in Baramulla district north of Srinagar.

Elsewhere, seven rebels, two soldiers and a civilian were killed in separate shootouts across the region since Thursday evening, police said.

Police in Pakistan, meanwhile, said one man was killed and a Pakistani soldier was wounded when Indian troops fired mortar shells across the Line of Control.

India and Pakistan said this week they would withdraw troops from their border. But both sides said there would be no withdrawal of troops facing the 462-mile Line of Control.

Nearly a dozen militant groups are fighting New Delhi’s rule in Jammu and Kashmir, India’s only Muslim-majority state.

U.S. Ambassador Robert Blackwill told reporters in New Delhi on Friday that “the decision of the Indian government to redeploy its troops away from the international border is very welcome indeed.”