Indonesia president says ready to temporarily shelter Gazans

NEW DELHI, April 22 : At least 20 people were feared dead after suspected militants opened fire on them in India’s Himalayan territory of Jammu and Kashmir on Tuesday, with officials saying it was one of the deadliest such attacks in recent times.

Here is a look at major attacks over the years in India’s only Muslim-majority region, where militants have fought security forces for decades.

NOVEMBER 2024

At least 11 people were injured when militants threw a grenade at security personnel in a crowded flea market in the main city of Srinagar.

OCTOBER 2024

Six migrant workers and a doctor were shot dead by militants who opened fire near a tunnel construction site. The Resistance Front (TRF) claimed responsibility.

JUNE 2024

At least nine people died and 33 were injured when a bus carrying Hindu pilgrims plunged into a deep gorge after a suspected militant attack.

MAY 2024

Suspected militants opened fire on a tourist couple from the northwestern city of Jaipur, injuring them both.

FEBRUARY 2019

At least 44 security personnel were killed after a suicide bomber rammed a car into a bus carrying Indian paramilitary police in Kashmir. The militant group Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) claimed responsibility.

JULY 2017

At least seven Hindu pilgrims, on their way back from the revered Amarnath shrine deep in the Himalayas, died when their bus got caught in crossfire after two militant attacks on police in the area.

SEPTEMBER 2016

At least 17 soldiers were killed as separatists armed with AK-47 assault rifles and grenades stormed an army base in Uri near the disputed border with Pakistan.

ACCRA: Ghana’s new leader said Tuesday he initiated a fresh bid to woo back Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger to the west African bloc ECOWAS after the junta-led countries quit earlier this year.
President John Mahama said his government had appointed a special envoy to “initiate high-level conversations” with the three countries after their withdrawal from the political and economic group.
“The recent decision by Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger to withdraw from ECOWAS is a regrettable development,” said Mahama at the launch of the bloc’s 50th anniversary celebrations in Accra, Ghana’s capital.
“We must respond not with isolation or recrimination, but with understanding, dialogue and a willingness to listen and to engage,” he said.
Before him, Senegalese President Bassirou Diomaye Faye had initiated similar efforts but said earlier this month he had “done everything possible” to bring the three countries back into the bloc, to no avail.
ECOWAS earlier said it had extended invitations to the junta leaders to attend the event at Accra’s International Conference Center.
Officials acknowledged the presence of representatives of the three countries at the event, but did not specify who they were, with the junta leaders apparently having declined to attend.
Mahama, who took office in January, said he has “prioritized diplomatic re-engagement with our Sahelian neighbors.”
Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger are led by juntas that seized power in coups between 2020 and 2023 and have since turned away from former colonial power France and moved closer to Russia.
They lie in the region known as the Sahel, which stretches between the dry Sahara desert in the north and the more humid savannas to the south.
They quit ECOWAS at the beginning of the year, accusing the regional bloc of being subservient to France.
They have joined together in a bloc called the Alliance of Sahel States (AES), which was originally set up as a defense pact in 2023 but now seeks closer integration.
Each has been wracked by attacks by extremists allied with either Al-Qaeda or Daesh for a decade — violence that governments have not been able to eradicate despite previous help from French forces.
Together the three countries sprawl over an area of some 2.8 million square kilometers (1.1 million square miles) — roughly four times the size of France — in Africa’s northwest.