Bold attack near airport rattles Kashmir

On Tuesday, the sound of explosions woke Srinagar up.

At 4:30 a.m., residents heard the dull thud of grenades and the rapid bam-bam-bam hammering of machine gun fire.

Srinagar is the biggest city in the Indian zone of disputed Kashmir, and Kashmirs are sadly familiar with the sounds of war. But this was coming from an unusual place: the heavily fortified international airport.

Three militants, who the Indian authorities said had slipped in from neighboring Pakistan, attacked a paramilitary camp near the airport, setting off a prolonged gun battle that lasted for hours and shut down the airport for the better part of the day.

It was the boldest strike in recent months, and though government troops eventually overpowered the militants and killed them all, the attack raised troubling questions about the airport’s level of security.

The Indian police said the attackers had cut a hole in the barbed-wire fence at a Border Security Force paramilitary camp that sits less than 1,000 feet from the terminal building of the airport, one of Kashmir’s most vital hubs. It is ringed by hundreds of soldiers and police officers.

Read the whole story from The New York Times.

Featured image courtesy of AP