NEW DELHI/ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Indian officials said elite troops crossed into Pakistan-ruled Kashmir on Thursday and killed suspected militants preparing to infiltrate and carry out attacks on major cities, in a surprise raid that raised tensions between the nuclear-armed rivals. Pakistan said there had been no such targeted strikes, but some military officers said it had repulsed the Indian troops and returned fire across the Line of Control, the de facto frontier that runs through the disputed Himalayan territory of Kashmir. An Indian military source and a government official said Indian special forces crossed the heavily militarized border by foot just after midnight and hit about half a dozen “launching pads”, where suspected militants were preparing to sneak across. India had on Tuesday announced that it was pulling out of the SAARC summit scheduled to be held in Islamabad in November after the September 18 cross-border terror attack on an Indian Army base in Uri, Jammu and Kashmir that claimed the lives of 18 Indian soldiers. The strikes also raised the possibility of a military escalation between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan that would wreck a 2003 Kashmir ceasefire. Lieutenant General Ranbir Singh, the Indian army’s director general of military operations, said the strikes were launched on Wednesday based on ‘very specific and credible information that some terrorist units had positioned themselves…with an aim to carry out infiltration and terrorist strikes’. That one country is working to deny Asia this opportunity. "The latest developments have set in the fear and tension as the deteriorating situation may trigger cross [border] artillery duels [such as] we have witnessed during the 1990s when several villagers were killed and wounded," he said. “There was tremendous pressure on the Indian prime minister to prove that he is ready to take serious action.”

The border clash also comes at a delicate time for Pakistan, with powerful Army Chief of Staff General Raheel Sharif due to retire shortly and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif still to decide on a successor. NAWAZ SHARIF REACTS



Minutes after India announced on Thursday that it carried out surgical strikes across the LoC on Wednesday night, Sharif denounced what he called was an "unprovoked and naked aggression" by Indian forces. India conducted Surgical strikes across the Line of Control in Kash

The Indian Army today said it has conducted surgical strikes on terror launch pads across the Line of Control (LoC) in Pakistan, killing several terrorists and causing significant casualties to their hideouts. Both India and Pakistan claim Kashmir in full, but govern separate parts, and have fought three wars since independence from Britain in 1947, two of them over Kashmir. Tension between the South Asian rivals has been high since an Indian crackdown on dissent in Kashmir following the killing by security forces of Burhan Wani, a young separatist leader, in July. Slideshow (3 Images)

They rose further when New Delhi blamed Pakistan for the Uri attack, which inflicted the heaviest toll on the Indian army in a single incident in 14 years. On Wednesday, officials from several countries said a November summit of a the South Asian regional group due to be held in Islamabad may be called off after India, Bangladesh and Afghanistan said they would not attend.
The Indian Army claims it conducted surgical strikes on militant camps in Pakistan across the Line of Control, allegedly-killing several suspected militants. However, Pakistan rejects this claim and terms it cross-border firing that killed two of its soldiers.