Militants kill 31 in attack on Kashmir assembly

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Bob's Note: Notice that they no longer call terrorists what they are. Now the politically correct, non racial-profiling, we can't offend the attackers refer to these murderers as "militants." How quaint. I guess Hitler was just a militant too.

TUESDAY OCTOBER 02 2001
FROM MUZAMIL JALEEL IN DELHI

AT LEAST 31 people were killed and 75 injured when Islamic militants with close links to the Taleban launched a suicide attack on the Kashmir state assembly in Srinagar yesterday.

Shortly before 2pm a man rammed an explosive-laden vehicle into the heavily guarded main gate of the assembly complex, then blew it and himself up. Other militants rushed into the building, opening fire. It was the worst attack in the Indian state in two years.

A seven-hour battle followed between gunmen dressed in police uniforms and the security forces, who moved 14 MPs and a minister to safety.

One of the Islamic rebel groups fighting for the independence of Kashmir claimed responsibility for the attack.

India condemned the attack as a “barbaric act of terrorism” and accused Pakistan of aiding and abetting its perpetrators. “This terrorist attack once again shows that, notwithstanding the cosmetic steps Pakistan may take against a few organisations under international pressure, it continues to be a country that aids, abets and sponsors terrorism and terrorist networks,” the Indian Foreign Ministry statement said.

Pakistan also condemned the attack. “This act of terrorism in Srinagar is specially reprehensible as it appears to be aimed at maligning the legitimate struggle of the Kashmiri people for their right to self-determination,” a Foreign Ministry spokesman said.

Police said the number of casualties would have been much higher had the attackers realised that the politicians were meeting in a nearby building after a fire at the complex. The assembly’s other employees escaped during the gun battle.

“I heard eight blasts inside the complex. They were hurling grenades on all sides and shooting everybody they could see,” said Ghulam Ahmad Bhat, the director of the fire service, who had rushed to help the victims of the blast.

“I saw a man crying for help. Both his legs had been severed. But I could not go in, it was too dangerous.”

The assembly had been in session since last week, and there were unprecedented security arrangements around the complex.

Jaish-i-Mohammed, a Pakistan-based militant group, claimed responsibility for the attack. It identified the suicide bomber as Wajahat Hussain, a resident of Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province.

The group was started by Masood Azhar, a top militant leader from Pakistan who was released from an Indian jail and exchanged for the crew and passengers of an Indian airliner, which was hijacked and taken to the Afghan city of Kandahar in 1999.

A majority of Jaish activists, including Azhar, were earlier members of Harakat-ul-Mujahidin, the group banned by the United States.

The primary religious and ideological base for Jaish is the same as that of the Taleban. Both arose from the network of 9,000 Islamic academies which Jaish’s parent organisation, Jamiat-ul-Ulemai-Islam, administers across Pakistan.

More than 30,000 people have died since the revolt erupted in Kashmir in late 1989. Pakistan says it only gives moral and diplomatic support to Kashmiris opposed to Indian rule.

Copyright 2001 Times Newspapers Ltd.