SOLDIERS INJURED IN FRESH BORDER SKIRMISH

NEW DELHI Indian and Chinese troops clashed last week in an incident that caused minor injuries on both sides, Indian officials said Monday, underscoring the persistent border tensions between the two nuclear-armed neighbours.

Last June, the two countries engaged in their deadliest conflict in more than five decades, a high-altitude brawl in which 20 Indian soldiers were killed along with an unknown number of Chinese casualties.

Since then, tens of thousands of Indian and Chinese troops have been locked in a stalemate near the site of the clash in Ladakh. Soldiers are enduring brutal winter temperatures high in the mountains as talks have failed to de-escalate the situation.

The latest incident took place hundreds of miles from that standoff at a different section of the frontier in the eastern Himalayas.

An Indian official who spoke on the condition of anonymity characterized the clash as “hand-to-hand combat.”