NEW DELHI: India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh branded Thursday's attack by militants on an Indian police station and army camp in disputed Kashmir as “barbaric” but - without mentioning Pakistan - said it would not derail efforts to pursue peace through dialogue.

“This is one more in a series of provocations and barbaric actions by the enemies of peace,” Manmohan Singh said in a statement. “Such attacks will not deter us and will not succeed in derailing our efforts to find a resolution to all problems through a process of dialogue.”

A group of militants dressed in Indian army uniforms attacked an Indian police station located near the main city of Srinagar before attacking an army camp and killing eight people, Indian officials said.

The attack triggered calls in New Delhi for talks between the rival nations' leaders at the weekend to be called.

Just a day before the attack, Singh said he would meet Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on the sidelines of the United Nations (UN) General Assembly for highly anticipated talks.

The Pakistani Prime Minister had also earlier expressed his wish to meet his Indian counterpart at the UN General Assembly to resume peace efforts between the two South Asian countries.

The talks are expected to discuss rising violence in the Kashmir region and to promote cordial relations between the neighbouring countries.

While Pakistani officials have not yet outlined the agenda for the Sharif-Singh meeting, Indian officials have said the issue of terrorism would figure prominently in the talks.

Pakistani officials, however, underlined Mr Sharif’s commitment to improving ties with India, pointing out that despite a downturn in ties after clashes at the Line of Control (LoC), the prime minister had been pushing for a meeting with Singh in New York.

KABUL: An Afghan soldier opened fire Thursday on his Nato trainers, killing one and wounding several others in the country’s east, officials said.

Attacks in which Afghan forces turn their guns on their international partners have killed scores of US-led troops, breeding mistrust and undermining efforts to train local forces before Nato combat troops withdraw next year.

The latest shooting was at a military training facility and base in the eastern province of Paktia, known to be one of the hotbeds of the Taliban insurgency, an Afghan official said.

The soldier attached to Nato’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) was inside the base when attacked, Rohullah Samoon, the local administration spokesman, told AFP from the provincial capital Gadez.

ISAF said the attacker, described as “wearing Afghan national security forces uniform”, was killed in return fire from other troops on the ground.

ISAF did not provide further details including the exact location of the incident or the nationality of the victim.

Attacks of this nature, locally known as “insider” or “green on blue” are common in Afghanistan where Afghan troops, some of them reportedly affiliated to insurgent groups, turn on Nato and US allies.

An Afghan soldier shot dead three US soldiers during a training exercise in Paktia last Saturday.

BAGHDAD: A bomb exploded in a crowded market in the Iraqi capital on Thursday, killing at least seven people and wounding 15, officials said.

The blast in the Dura area of south Baghdad marks the latest in a spate of attacks at markets, which are frequently targeted by militants seeking to cause maximum casualties.

Iraq is witnessing the worst violence since 2008, when the country was just emerging from a brutal sectarian conflict.

There are persistent fears that Iraq will return to the all-out Sunni-Shia sectarian violence that peaked in 2006-2007 and killed tens of thousands of people.

With the latest violence, more than 680 people have been killed this month and over 4,500 since the beginning of the year, according to AFP figures based on security and medical sources.

Diplomats and analysts say the Shia-led government's failure to address the grievances of the Sunni Arab minority, who complain of political exclusion and abuses at the hands of the security forces, has driven the spike in violence this year.

Sectarian tensions created by the civil war in neighbouring Syria have also fuelled the violence rocking Iraq.

SRINAGAR: Militants stormed a police station and an Indian army base in Kashmir on Thursday, killing at least nine in an attack the state's chief minister said was aimed at derailing peace talks between India and Pakistan.

“This attack in Jammu is aimed at derailing the dialogue process,” said Omar Abdullah, chief minister of the Indian administered Kashmir.

The group of militants who attacked a police station and army camp in India administered Kashmir on Thursday had crossed the border from Pakistan the previous day, the state's chief minister said.

Omar Abdullah told reporters that the raid appeared designed to upset plans for a meeting in New York this week between Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

“Given the history, timing and location, the aim is to derail the proposed meeting between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Pakistani counterpart,” Abdullah said. “There are forces that are inimical to peace and want to derail any peace process.”

The militants, all wearing army fatigues, lobbed grenades and opened fire at the Hiranagar police station near the border with Pakistan, police said.

Around the same time attackers struck at an army base in the nearby Samba district in the southern-most part of the the Indian-administered state where a fierce gunbattle with soldiers took place and Indian tanks were deployed.

The attacks are set to overshadow a meeting by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly this weekend, the first top-level dialogue in three years.

Manmohan Singh condemned “the heinous terrorist attack” in a statement but said that that it “will not deter us and will not succeed in derailing our efforts to find a resolution to all problems through a process of dialogue”.

Militant attacks have a history of stalling stop-start peace efforts between the two neighbours, who have fought three wars since independence, because New Delhi accuses Pakistan of abetting the groups which strike Indian targets.

The NDTV channel reported that Thursday's attackers may have driven from the police station to the army camp in a hijacked truck, but other security sources cautioned that there might have been separate groups.

“I was inside the dhaba (a roadside eatery) when I saw three men entering the camp firing a barrage of bullets. They opened the gates and entered,” one eyewitness told reporters outside the army camp in Samba.

Gunshots could be heard ringing out from inside the walled compound, while two officers could be seen running out carrying an injured man over their shoulder.

At least five policemen and two civilians were killed in the first attack on the police station in Kathua district, a police officer told AFP, and at least two soldiers including an officer died in the second assault, a separate army source who asked not to be named confirmed.

Indian premier Singh confirmed on Wednesday that he would meet his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif despite calls from the opposition to take a hardline with Islamabad.

Formal peace talks known as the Composite Dialogue are currently off and India has been keen to downplay any expectation they might restart as a result of Sunday's talks.

“Primarily we will see whether the dialogue process that started between the two countries, that stopped and got derailed, can that be brought back on track,” Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid told reporters at the UN on Wednesday.

Kashmir, a picturesque Himalayan territory, is divided between India and Pakistan by a de facto border known as the Line of Control (LoC) but it is claimed in full by both countries.

NAIROBI: Somalia's Shebab insurgents claimed Wednesday 137 hostages they had seized died in a Nairobi shopping mall siege, figures impossible to verify and higher than the number of people officially registered as missing.

The Al-Qaeda-linked fighters, in a message posted on Twitter, said “137 hostages who were being held by the mujaheddin” had died.

They also accused Kenyan troops of using “chemical agents” to end the four-day stand-off.

“In an act of sheer cowardice, beleaguered Kenyan forces deliberately fired projectiles containing chemical agents,” one tweet read.

“To cover their crime, the Kenyan government carried out a demolition to the building, burying evidence and all hostages under the rubble.” President Uhuru Kenyatta announced an end to the 80-hour bloodbath late Tuesday, with the “immense” loss of 61 civilians and six members of the security forces.

Police said the death toll was provisional, with the Kenyan Red Cross listing 63 people as still missing.

There was no immediate response from Kenya's government, but the Shebab have in past made repeated outlandish claims, especially on their Twitter site.

The Shebab said they carried out the attack in retaliation for Kenya's two-year battle against the extremists' bases in the country.

In one of the worst attacks in Kenya's history, the militants marched into the four-storey, part Israeli-owned mall at midday Saturday, spraying shoppers with automatic weapons fire and tossing grenades.

Kenya on Wednesday began three days of official mourning, with flags flying at half mast, while rescue workers scoured the wreckage of the mall for bodies.

Close to 200 were wounded in the four-day siege, which saw running battles between militants and security forces in the complex, Nairobi's largest shopping centre and popular with wealthy Kenyans, diplomats, UN workers and other expatriates.

CAIRO: Egyptian authorities have shut down the headquarters of the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice newspaper in Cairo, the latest move aimed at crushing the Islamist movement, the Brotherhood said on Wednesday.

“We the journalists of the Freedom and Justice newspaper condemn the security forces for closing down the headquarters of the newspaper,” the Brotherhood said in a statement posted on its Facebook page.

Police stormed the building overnight and removed the contents. A source at the Cairo Security Department said the raid followed Monday's court ruling which banned the Brotherhood and ordered its funds seized.

“A court ruling was issued to do it on charges of inciting violence and terrorism in the recent past,” a security source said, referring to the operation.

The army overthrew Mursi in July, and the Brotherhood has seen hundreds of its members killed and thousands arrested since then.

The campaign had forced many of the 50 journalists who produced the daily Freedom and Justice to work in secret to avoid arrest.

The newspaper, named after the Brotherhood's political wing, had focused on efforts to reverse what it called a military coup against an elected government.

The Brotherhood emerged from the shadows to win parliamentary and presidential elections after autocrat Hosni Mubarak was overthrown in 2011.

Many Egyptians became disillusioned with Mursi after he gave himself sweeping powers and mismanaged the economy, taking to the streets in protest and prompting the army move.

Earlier, the provincial government had decided that five police stations in the metropolis, one each in the five districts of Karachi division, would be under the joint control of Rangers and police to deal with four types of heinous crimes.

The suspects arrested on charges of “terrorism, targeted killing, kidnapping for ransom and bhatta (extortion)” during the ongoing targeted operation would be kept and interrogated at the five designated police stations, said Advocate General for Sindh Barrister Khalid Javed Khan.

Sources told Dawn.com that PS Aaram Bagh, PS Ferozabad, PS Nazimabad, PS Orangi Town and PS Steel Town would be under the control of Rangers’ forces.

Meanwhile, in an operation carried out by the city’s east and west zone police, 130 suspects were arrested within 24 hours. The suspects included wanted criminals, drug dealers and fugitives. Moreover, arms were also recovered during the raid.

Moreover, paramilitary forces carried out operations in the areas of Old Sabzi Mandi, Phool Pati Lane Lyari, Kharadar, Zia Colony, Jodia Bazaar among others and arrested 21 suspects.

According to a Rangers’ spokesperson, the arrested persons were involved in heinous crimes.

Karachi, the largest metropolitan city of Pakistan, is riddled with targeted killings, gang wars, kidnappings for ransom, extortion and terrorism. Targeted operations are ongoing in Karachi under a directive issued by the federal government led by Rangers’ forces with the support of police against criminals already identified by federal military and civilian agencies.

Lisarh represented all that was good in Muzaffarnagar, dubbed the sugar bowl of India. It had the prosperity arising from the region's agrarian boom, and in its demographics, it had two communities living and working together in peace.

Haji Samiuddin, 65, of Lisarh represented all that Muzaffarnagar could have been. Having toiled in his fields for decades, he had ensured his children got a good education and saw them become owners of a saw mill. The family business was booming, and they were thinking of expanding.

Samiuddin and his wife are now dead, killed and dumped inside their burning home. And Lisarh, a village that was on the cusp of becoming a town, will now never be the place it was.

***

Samiuddin's eldest son Saeed Hassan remembers each detail of the last time he met his father. It was the morning of September 7. Things had been worsening, and they had heard of the Jat mahapanchayat being held that day in Sakheda, 35 km away. "The Jats have gathered in lakhs. Our friends are leaving and so should we. These are dangerous times," Hassan had said.

Samiuddin found this incredulous. "We have lived here all our lives, half the youngsters here have grown up sitting in my lap. Nobody will harm us here," he said.

Hassan says he told him that it was no longer about the villagers. "This is about politics and things we are not connected to."

However, Samiuddin insisted on staying. "You go son, you have your children to think about," he said. "You mother and I were born here and come what may, we will die here."

His mother Hamida, age 58, had added, "I cannot leave your father's side. Jahan bhi jao khuda to sab jagah hai (Wherever you go, god is everywhere)."