Kashmir militants claim airbase attack

A Kashmir-based militant coalition has said it carried out the deadly attack on an Indian air force base.

The United Jihad Council - a coalition of militant groups fighting Indian rule in Kashmir - claimed its "national highway squad" was responsible.

The attack on the Pathankot airbase near the border with Pakistan is seen as an attempt to derail recent peace moves by Pakistan and India.

Indian PM Narendra Modi has held a meeting to review the raid.

Five militants and seven Indian soldiers have so far been killed during three days of fighting,

The United Jihad Council (UJC), which is based in Pakistan-administered Kashmir and counts more than a dozen armed groups as members, is headed by Syed Salahuddin who also heads Hizb-ul Mujahiddin, the longest surviving Kashmiri militant group.

The UJC said it wanted to show India that no security establishment was out of reach of militants, and that India should allow all Kashmiris to decide their political future.

Over the weekend some Indian security officials suggested the Pakistan-based Islamist militant group Jaish-e-Mohammed was to blame. India says the group is backed by Pakistan, but Islamabad denies this.

Five militants have been killed at Pathankot. Seven Indian soldiers have also died, security officials said.

As the gun battle continued between Indian troops and militants at Pathankot, Indian TV stations reported that a loud explosion was heard at the base.

There were also reports that a sixth attacker had been killed at the air force base. It is unclear if any militants are still holding out

All roads leading to the air force base have been closed.

Operations are continuing inside the sprawling, but heavily fortified, base to locate any more gunmen who are still inside the complex

Shops in Pathankot have opened today after two days but residents are yet to come out of the shock of a heavily guarded base coming under attack.

Most people are blaming the porous India-Pakistan border in Punjab.

Many also said they were embarrassed that the base was yet to be secured.

On Monday evening, a senior security official told a press conference that all families living on the base were safe and "all strategic assets [helicopters, aircraft and other military hardware] were secured".

Maj-Gen Dushyant Singh, from India's elite National Security Guard, said it would take a "long time" to declare the base completely secure because of its size and geography.

Meanwhile, police in Punjab's Mohali district said they had arrested three men with illegal arms and recovered a Pakistani "SIM card" from them. It is not yet clear whether the men had any connection with the attack, police said.

he Pathankot assault started before dawn on Saturday, when a group of gunmen - wearing Indian army uniforms - entered the residential quarters on the base.

Hours of heavy gunfire followed and a helicopter was seen firing at the facility on Sunday.

The attack is being seen as a blow to an apparent Indo-Pakistani peace initiative launched just days ago.

Hopes for a thaw in relations were raised after Mr Modi paid an unexpected visitto his Pakistani counterpart, Nawaz Sharif.

The operation by Indian security forces to take out the militants who attacked the base at Pathankot has been mired in controversy. Since Saturday there have been conflicting accounts about whether the gunmen - at least five of them are said to have died so far - were still active on the base.

Questions have been raised about how Home Minister Rajnath Singh declared on Saturday evening that the militants had been neutralised. Mr Singh later deleted his tweet.

Mr Singh insists that the "attack could have been much worse" if the government hadn't had advance intelligence.

At the same time, a senior official of the home ministry told reporters on Sunday that he was not sure whether there were more than two more terrorists holed up in the base.

There are a still a number of unanswered questions about the attack and the security of the base, which is on great strategic significance.

In the end, India's response to the attack appears to have been marred by the familiar malaise of multiple security agencies and a lack of co-ordination between them. As an official told a newspaper: "Too many cooks spoil the broth."

It comes at the same time as gunmen tried to attack the Indian consulate in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-e-Sharif.

In July seven people were killed in a similar attack when gunmen stormed a police station in nearby Gurdaspur district. The three attackers in Gurdaspur were killed after a 12-hour standoff with police.

Pathankot air force base is about 430km (270 miles) north of the Indian capital, Delhi, and is on the road linking Indian-administered Kashmir with the rest of the country.

Indian-administered Kashmir has seen a long-running insurgency against rule from Delhi, and Kashmir has been a flashpoint in relations between Pakistan and India for nearly 70 years since independence.

A strategic location

• The Pathankot air force base extends over about 2,000 acres, including some areas covered with tall vegetation.

• The base's commanding officer Lt-Col JS Dhamoon has described it as a "mini-city". It includes homes and a school for the children of air force personnel.

• Pathankot is home to a fleet of MiG-21 fighter jets and Mi-25 and Mi-35 attack helicopters, along with other military hardware.

• The base and the state of Punjab as a whole has "probably the highest concentration of military personnel in India because it's so close to the border with Pakistan," analyst Rahul Bedi from Jane's Information Group told AP.

• It occupies a highly strategic position on the main highway connecting Kashmir with the rest of the country. It is also very close - about 35km - to the border with Pakistan.

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