A Pakistan-based Islamist militant group warned Wednesday of fresh attacks against Indian troops, as the army said a "large number" of guerrillas were poised to infiltrate Kashmir.
Eight soldiers and 17 rebels died in protracted gun battles that started Saturday in Kashmir's Kupwara district, close to the Line of Control (LOC) that divides the Indian and Pakistani zones of the Muslim-majority Himalayan region, the Indian army said.
Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) said its members were involved in the clashes, some of the fiercest in recent years.
"The gun battles should serve as a message to India that the struggle for Kashmir's freedom is on with full vigour," Lashkar spokesman Abdullah Ghaznavi told AFP by telephone in Srinagar, in Indian Kashmir, from an unknown location.
Ghaznavi said Lashkar militants initiated the gunfight by ambushing an army column in a forest area. He said the fighting left 25 Indian soldiers and 10 Lashkar militants dead.
The Indian army said the operation was launched by the soldiers after they were tipped off.
General Deepak Kapoor, chief of India's million-plus army, warned the military was bracing for more attacks in Kashmir.
"The Kupwara encounter with militants is definitely an indication of stepped-up infiltration into Kashmir," Kapoor said in New Delhi.
The general said cross-border militants were operating from about 50 "terrorist camps" in the Pakistan-administered zone of divided Kashmir.
India accuses Pakistan of arming, training and funding the rebels, a charge Islamabad denies.
The army chief's warning came as Indian Defence Minister AK Antony ordered the military to handle the situation in Kashmir with "utmost firmness."
Lashkar has been blamed for the attacks in Mumbai late last year that killed 165 people. It has denied any role in the attacks.
An army commander in Kashmir confirmed the slain militants were Lashkar guerrillas and added more militants were expected to cross into Indian territory.
"There are likely large numbers of terrorists awaiting infiltration," brigadier Gurmit Singh said in Srinagar.
He said maps and global positioning systems recovered from the dead militants were "indicative that state and security forces' assistance from across (the border in Pakistan) was there, as such material is not usually in the civil domain."
He also said the militants were intercepted because of "absolute, accurate and reliable human intelligence from both sides of the LOC, that is from our side and from across the LOC."
"All I can tell you is that we have a very deliberate, well laid-out intelligence network to have early warnings of the infiltration attempts," he added.
India has begun deploying precision US and Israel-made sensors and radar at the LOC to monitor infiltration.
The anti-India insurgency has left more than 47,000 people dead in Kashmir by official counts.
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