Srinagar, January 2
Suspected militants killed two alleged informers of the security forces in separate incidents, while the security forces claimed to have seized a large quantity of arms and ammunition during search operations in different parts of Kashmir since yesterday.

The police here said Manzoor Ahmad was kidnapped and subsequently shot dead by militants for allegedly being a security forces informer in the Aishmuqam area of Anantnag district last night.

The bullet-ridden body of Farooq Ahmad Chhat was found from the Keller area of Pulwama district today. The police said a letter and a grenade were seized from near the body. He had been killed by militants on the allegation of being an informer.

The Army seized a large quantity of arms and ammunition when it busted two hideouts from Kanthpora and Nunwain forests in Kupwara district of north Kashmir. The seizures included one rocket-propelled gun with 35 rockets, five disposable rocket launchers, two flame throwers, four AK 56 rifles, three pistols, three under barrel grenade launchers (UBGLs) with 57 grenades, one rocket of 107 mm caliber, 71 hand grenades, 27 kg of RDX.

Displaying the arms before visiting mediapersons at a camp in the Trehgam area, Army officers held that it was a serious blow to the militants operating in the area.

They said that though the extent of infiltration from across the border had come down due to the recent snowfall on the high mountains, the infiltrators had been bringing huge quantities of narcotics with them.

New Delhi, January 2
The December 29 skirmishes between the American and the Pakistani troops on Pakistan-Afghanistan border are being viewed by the Vajpayee government here as “an inevitability that was bound to happen.”

The development is indicative of the growing Pakistani isolation in the international community despite Islamabad’s diplomatic triumph of getting elected for two years as one of the 10 non-permanent members of the United Nations’ Security Council. The election was “uncontested” and India did not contest obviously because of its much loftier goal: the seat of a permanent member in the council.

According to well-placed Pakistan watchers in the Vajpayee government and diplomatic sources here, the Sunday’s development demonstrates that Pakistan is fast losing importance for the USA, if it has not already lost.

They today said the unprecedented direct fight between the troops of the two so-called partners in the international coalition against terrorism indicated that Washington was no longer prepared to brook any opposition, military or political, in its ongoing war against the loose canons of the Al-Qaida and the Taliban.

The development also signals the beginning of the end of a close strategic relationship between Islamabad and Washington and indicates that the position of President Pervez Musharraf in his country itself is becoming growingly untenable.

Two Pakistani troops were killed and an American soldier was injured in a fierce clash between them which climaxed in the US military summoning an F-16 fighter aircraft. The American plane dropped a 500-pound bomb on an Islamic religious school in south Waziristan, a lawless area in south Waziristan in Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province (NWFP), bordering Afghanistan.

The development comes close on the heels of the astounding victory of the pro-Taliban fundamentalist Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) in October 10 general elections of Pakistan which has rattled the American strategists. The MMA rules the NWFP and is member of the coalition government in Baluchistan - two of the four Pakistani provinces.