Kashmir clashes leave seven dead

Armed clashes between Indian security forces and separatist rebels in Kashmir on Tuesday and Wednesday left seven people dead.

On Wednesday, two Indian army officers and a senior policeman carrying out a security sweep in a forested area of the southern Kashmir valley were ambushed and killed by suspected Muslim militants.

India's Kashmir police said the ambushers belonged to the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba militant group.

On Tuesday, an Indian soldier, a police officer and two suspected rebels were killed in a firefight in the mountainous Rajouri area.

Gunmen first shot dead an army sniffer dog that had led the soldiers to the militants.

The deaths are the latest in the troubled Muslim-majority region, also claimed by Pakistan.