India air force base attack leaves four gunmen, two troops dead

PATHANKOT, INDIA >> Suspected militants infiltrated an Indian air force base near the border with Pakistan on Saturday and exchanged fire with security forces for hours, leaving at least four gunmen and two Indian troops dead, officials and news reports said.

Although it was unclear who staged the attack, it was being seen as a possible attempt to undo recent progress made in relations between archrivals India and Pakistan, coming just a week after the first visit to Pakistan in 12 years by an Indian prime minister.

The attack at the Pathankot air force base in Punjab state began a couple of hours before dawn, and by late morning it appeared that the violence had ended with the killing of the gunmen by Indian forces. But two hours later, more gunfire erupted and an air force helicopter was seen firing at an area of the base, a major installation located about 430 kilometers (267 miles) north of New Delhi.

Air force spokeswoman Rochelle D’Silva said Saturday night that troops were combing the entire base to fully secure it. She said that the combing operation was expected to continue through the night, and that the full number of casualties would be clear once the base was completely secured.

By 9 p.m., no gunfire had been heard around the base for more than three hours.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi made an unannounced visit to Pakistan on Dec. 25 to meet with his Pakistani counterpart, Nawaz Sharif. The visit was seen as a potential sign of thawing relations between the two nuclear-armed neighbors. The two leaders also held an unscheduled meeting at the Paris climate change talks last month.

Ahead of Modi’s visit to Pakistan, the national security advisers of both countries had met in Thailand. The foreign secretaries of both nations are scheduled to meet in Islamabad later this month.