SRINAGAR, India: Indian security forces have shot and killed six suspected insurgents in a fierce exchange of gunfire in the Indian portion of Kashmir.
A police statement says the firing took place early Friday when security forces attacked a rebel hideout in the foothills of the Waghama Sutkipora area of south Kashmir.
The news of the rebel deaths triggered protests by civilians opposed to Indian rule.
Police say security forces recovered the six bodies and rifles carried by the rebels.
India accuses Pakistan of arming and training the rebels, a charge Pakistan denies.
Rebel groups have been fighting Indian rule since 1989 demanding Kashmir’s independence or merger with Pakistan. About 70,000 people have been killed in the uprising and the ensuing Indian military crackdown.
Indian security forces kill 6 suspected rebels in Kashmir
Indian security forces kill 6 suspected rebels in Kashmir
Gordon Brown ‘regrets’ Iraq War support, new biography says
- Former UK PM claims he was ‘misled’ over evidence of WMDs
- Robin Cook, the foreign secretary who resigned in protest over calls for war, had a ‘clearer view’
LONDON: Former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown regrets his failure to oppose Tony Blair’s push for war with Iraq, a new biography has said.
Brown told the author of “Gordon Brown: Power with Purpose,” James Macintyre, that Robin Cook, the former foreign secretary who opposed the war, had a “clearer view” than the rest of the government at the time.
Cook quit the Cabinet in 2003 after protesting against the war, claiming that the push to topple Saddam Hussein was based on faulty information over a claimed stockpile of weapons of mass destruction.
That information served as the fundamental basis for the US-led war but was later discredited following the invasion of Iraq.
Brown, chancellor at the time, publicly supported Blair’s push for war, but now says he was “misled.”
If Brown had joined Cook’s protest at the time, the campaign to avoid British involvement in the war may have succeeded, political observers have since said.
The former prime minister said: “Robin had been in front of us and Robin had a clearer view. He felt very strongly there were no weapons.
“And I did not have that evidence … I was being told that there were these weapons. But I was misled like everybody else.
“And I did ask lots of questions … and I didn’t get the correct answers,” he added.
“Gordon Brown: Power with Purpose,” will be published by Bloomsbury next month.
