SRINAGAR: The death toll from a militant attack on an army base in the Indian-administered part of Kashmir climbed to 10, police said, as a siege at the compound stretched into a second day.
A firefight erupted Saturday when an unknown number of heavily-armed militants stormed the base in Jammu, the second-largest city in the disputed Himalayan region bordering Pakistan.
Authorities initially said four people were killed in the brazen pre-dawn strike, but updated the death toll as elite Indian commandos flanked by armored vehicles searched the sprawling compound.
“Five soldiers, one civilian and four terrorists have been killed so far,” police chief Shesh Paul Vaid told AFP.
Nine others, including women and children, were injured in the attack that the Indian army blamed on Pakistan-based militant group Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM).
Local broadcasters showed tanks rolling into the Sunjawan army camp late Saturday and a helicopter hovering overhead as the attack unfolded.
Police said the assault began around 4:55 a.m. on Saturday (2325 GMT Friday) when guards came under a hail of bullets near the base’s boundary wall.
The intruders took positions inside a residential complex meant for soldiers’ families as the army launched a counter-offensive to drive them out.
It is still unclear whether any gunmen remain on the compound.
Hindu-majority Jammu, located in the foothills of the mountainous region, is relatively peaceful but has repeatedly seen militant assaults on military bases close to the frontier with Pakistan.
Kashmir has been divided between India and Pakistan since their independence from Britain in 1947. Both claim the territory in full and have fought two wars over the region.
Tens of thousands of people, mostly civilians, have died in an armed insurgency that erupted in 1989 by militants demanding that Kashmir be granted independence or merged with Pakistan.
Saturday’s attack comes 18 years after a similar militant attack on the base in 2003 that killed 12 soldiers.
Seven soldiers were killed in an attack in Jammu after suspected Pakistani militants in police uniforms stormed a major army base in November 2016.
New Delhi accuses Islamabad of sending armed militants, including JeM, across the border to attack the roughly half a million soldiers stationed in the Indian-administered part of the divided territory, a charge denied by Pakistan.
In late 2016, India said its soldiers destroyed militant bases inside Pakistan-administered Kashmir after 19 soldiers were killed in an assault on an army base.
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Ten killed in attack on Indian army camp in Kashmir
Ten killed in attack on Indian army camp in Kashmir
Culture being strangled by Kosovo’s political crisis
PRIZREN: Kosovo’s oldest cinema has been dark and silent for years as the famous theater slowly disintegrates under a leaky roof.
Signs warn passers-by in the historic city of Prizren that parts of the Lumbardhi’s crumbling facade could fall while it waits for its long-promised refurbishment.
“The city deserves to have the cinema renovated and preserved. Only junkies gathering there benefit from it now,” nextdoor neighbor butcher Arsim Futko, 62, told AFP.
For seven years, it waited for a European Union-funded revamp, only for the money to be suddenly withdrawn with little explanation.
Now it awaits similar repairs promised by the national government that has since been paralyzed by inconclusive elections in February.
And it is anyone’s guess whether the new government that will come out of Sunday’s snap election will keep the promise.
- ‘Collateral damage’ -
Cinema director Ares Shporta said the cinema has become “collateral damage” in a broader geopolitical game after the EU hit his country with sanctions in 2023.
The delayed repairs “affected our morale, it affected our lives, it affected the trust of the community in us,” Shporta said.
Brussels slapped Kosovo with sanctions over heightened tensions between the government and the ethnic Serb minority that live in parts of the country as Pristina pushed to exert more control over areas still tightly linked to Belgrade.
Cultural institutions have been among the hardest-hit sectors, as international funding dried up and local decisions were stalled by the parliamentary crisis.
According to an analysis by the Kosovo think tank, the GAP Institute for Advanced Studies, sanctions have resulted in around 613 million euros ($719 million) being suspended or paused, with the cultural sector taking a hit of 15-million-euro hit.
- ‘Ground zero’ -
With political stalemate threatening to drag on into another year, there are warnings that further funding from abroad could also be in jeopardy.
Since February’s election when outgoing premier Albin Kurti topped the polls but failed to win a majority, his caretaker government has been deadlocked with opposition lawmakers.
Months of delays, spent mostly without a parliament, meant little legislative work could be done.
Ahead of the snap election on Sunday, the government said that more than 200 million euros ($235 million) will be lost forever due to a failure to ratify international agreements.
Once the top beneficiary of the EU Growth Plan in the Balkans, Europe’s youngest country now trails most of its neighbors, the NGO Group for Legal and Political Studies’ executive director Njomza Arifi told AFP.
“While some of the countries in the region have already received the second tranches, Kosovo still remains at ground zero.”
Although there have been some enthusiastic signs of easing a half of EU sanctions by January, Kurti’s continued push against Serbian institutions and influence in the country’s north continues to draw criticism from both Washington and Brussels.
- ‘On the edge’ -
Across the river from the Lumbardhi, the funding cuts have also been felt at Dokufest, a documentary and short film festival that draws people to the region.
“The festival has had to make staff cuts. Unfortunately, there is a risk of further cuts if things don’t change,” Dokufest artistic director Veton Nurkollari said.
“Fortunately, we don’t depend on just one source because we could end up in a situation where, when the tap is turned off, everything is turned off.”
He said that many in the cultural sector were desperate for the upcoming government to get the sanctions lifted by ratification of the agreements that would allow EU funds to flow again.
“Kosovo is the only one left on the edge and without these funds.”
Signs warn passers-by in the historic city of Prizren that parts of the Lumbardhi’s crumbling facade could fall while it waits for its long-promised refurbishment.
“The city deserves to have the cinema renovated and preserved. Only junkies gathering there benefit from it now,” nextdoor neighbor butcher Arsim Futko, 62, told AFP.
For seven years, it waited for a European Union-funded revamp, only for the money to be suddenly withdrawn with little explanation.
Now it awaits similar repairs promised by the national government that has since been paralyzed by inconclusive elections in February.
And it is anyone’s guess whether the new government that will come out of Sunday’s snap election will keep the promise.
- ‘Collateral damage’ -
Cinema director Ares Shporta said the cinema has become “collateral damage” in a broader geopolitical game after the EU hit his country with sanctions in 2023.
The delayed repairs “affected our morale, it affected our lives, it affected the trust of the community in us,” Shporta said.
Brussels slapped Kosovo with sanctions over heightened tensions between the government and the ethnic Serb minority that live in parts of the country as Pristina pushed to exert more control over areas still tightly linked to Belgrade.
Cultural institutions have been among the hardest-hit sectors, as international funding dried up and local decisions were stalled by the parliamentary crisis.
According to an analysis by the Kosovo think tank, the GAP Institute for Advanced Studies, sanctions have resulted in around 613 million euros ($719 million) being suspended or paused, with the cultural sector taking a hit of 15-million-euro hit.
- ‘Ground zero’ -
With political stalemate threatening to drag on into another year, there are warnings that further funding from abroad could also be in jeopardy.
Since February’s election when outgoing premier Albin Kurti topped the polls but failed to win a majority, his caretaker government has been deadlocked with opposition lawmakers.
Months of delays, spent mostly without a parliament, meant little legislative work could be done.
Ahead of the snap election on Sunday, the government said that more than 200 million euros ($235 million) will be lost forever due to a failure to ratify international agreements.
Once the top beneficiary of the EU Growth Plan in the Balkans, Europe’s youngest country now trails most of its neighbors, the NGO Group for Legal and Political Studies’ executive director Njomza Arifi told AFP.
“While some of the countries in the region have already received the second tranches, Kosovo still remains at ground zero.”
Although there have been some enthusiastic signs of easing a half of EU sanctions by January, Kurti’s continued push against Serbian institutions and influence in the country’s north continues to draw criticism from both Washington and Brussels.
- ‘On the edge’ -
Across the river from the Lumbardhi, the funding cuts have also been felt at Dokufest, a documentary and short film festival that draws people to the region.
“The festival has had to make staff cuts. Unfortunately, there is a risk of further cuts if things don’t change,” Dokufest artistic director Veton Nurkollari said.
“Fortunately, we don’t depend on just one source because we could end up in a situation where, when the tap is turned off, everything is turned off.”
He said that many in the cultural sector were desperate for the upcoming government to get the sanctions lifted by ratification of the agreements that would allow EU funds to flow again.
“Kosovo is the only one left on the edge and without these funds.”
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