Gunmen attack Indian air force base near Pakistan border

Suspected Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorists from Pakistan today struck at an Air Force base in Pathankot in Punjab, killing two air personnel while four of the attackers were killed in an operation that lasted more than five hours.

Noting that the attack took place only a few days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Lahore visit, Singh hoped that it was not a repeat of what happened after then Prime Minister A B Vajpayee’s Lahore bus journey.

A statement issued by the Pakistan Foreign Ministry reads, “Pakistan strongly condemns airbase attack at Pathankot in India where many precious lives have been lost”. Two IAF personnel were martyred, six were injured and four terrorists killed in the gunbattle that ensued.

Police were investigating whether the militants came from the Indian portion of Kashmir or from Pakistan. “The long-term planning was always there but the ultimate decision to expedite it would have been taken after the visit”.

Reports suggest that elite National Security Guard commandos were deployed to fight the terrorists.

Officials said the gunmen, wearing army fatigues, managed to enter the Pathankot air base in India’s northwestern state of Punjab before dawn on Saturday. It was not yet clear if there was any link with Saturday’s attack.

Government had also deployed a couple of attack helicopters to hunt down the terrorists that some news reports suggest to have sneaked into India from Pakistan. Rebels routinely stage attacks in Indian-held Kashmir, where they’ve been fighting since 1989 for an independent Kashmir or its merger with Pakistan.

Security experts say that tight security along the disputed frontier running through Kashmir has pushed the focus of militant activity further south towards softer targets in India’s Punjab state. It’s also very close to India’s border with rival Pakistan.

The two countries agreed to resume a peace process in 2011 but tensions have spiked over the past two years, with cross-border shelling over the disputed border in Kashmir claiming dozens of lives since 2014.