26 BSF men wounded in Kashmir suicide attack; fidayeen killed

Srinagar, May 23 (UNI) A suicide bomber wounded 26 Border Security Force (BSF) personnel and killed himself today when he drove his car into their vehicle on the Srinagar Airport road near here.

The bombing came barely few hours ahead of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's arrival here to chair the second round-table conference besides reviewing the political, security and economic situation in the state.

Four of the 26 BSF men were critically wounded in the explosion carried out by the Hizbul Mujahideen ''fidayeen (suicide bomber)''.

A BSF spokesman told UNI that the suicide bomber rammed his Maruti car into the vehicle carrying about 40-45 personnel at Peerbagh on the heavily-guarded Srinagar-Airport road at 1855 hrs this evening.

He said 26 BSF personnel were wounded, four of them critically, in the attack. The injured have been admitted to the Army's 92 Base Camp hospital in the Badami Bagh Cantonment area here.

The men were on their way to the BSF's Subsidiary Training Centre (STC) at Humhama on the city outskirts in the 52-seater vehicle, bearing registration number HR55D-3945, from the force's frontier headquarters at Sanat Nagar when the fidayeen drove his white Maruti car into it at Peerbagh in the uptown city, the spokesman added.

A person, identifying himself as Ehsan Ilahi, a Hizb spokesman, called the local media here to claim the responsibility of the fidayeen attack.

Earlier on Sunday, fidayeen attacked a Congress rally here, killing at least three civilians and two policemen besides wounding 30 others, including Inspector General of Police (IGP), Kashmir K Rajendra Kumar.

The two fidayeen were also killed in the two-hour-long gunfight that erupted at the public meeting organised by the state Congress to mark the 15th death anniversary of late former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi at the Sher-i-Kashmir Municipal Park here on May 21.

The responsibility of the attack was claimed by Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) and Al Mansoorian militant outfits.

UNI AG MSJ KN2158