![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/635873252227355175-gettyimages-503153366jpg.jpg\")
Indian Army personnel stand alert near the Air Force Base in Pathankot on Jan. 2, 2016, during an ongoing attack on the base by suspected militants.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n Photo Credit: Narinder Nanu\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n Strategic Base<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Pathankot air base houses dozens of fighter jets and is important for its strategic location about 50 kilometres (30 miles) from the Pakistan border.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Local television stations showed helicopters surveying the area, while elite National Security Guard commandos were flown in to flush out the attackers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “We believe they are Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorists,” a top security official at the scene told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jaish-e-Mohammed, which is banned in Pakistan, fights against Indian rule in the divided Himalayan region of Kashmir, where a separatist conflict has claimed up to 100,000 lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While Punjab has largely been spared such violence, however, it has not been immune.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In July, three gunmen said to be Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba militants killed seven people, including four policemen, in an attack in the majority-Sikh state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Modi’s December 25 visit to Lahore to meet his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif indicated a potential thaw in tensions between the historical foes, and the foreign secretaries of both countries are to meet in Islamabad this month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But his friendly outreach prompted critics to warn of retaliation by militants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Our prime minister visited and after that the terrorists came here. They want friendship with Pakistan but look what they are doing to us,” said Ashok Kumar, 52, a shopkeeper in Pathankot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fragile Peace Process<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Sameer Patil, a security analyst at the Gateway House think-tank in Mumbai, said Saturday’s attack was likely to be a cross-border strike possibly carried out in retaliation for the visit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “There is substantial first evidence of Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Taiba militants trying to sabotage the peace process,” he told AFP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “The long-term planning was always there but the ultimate decision to expedite it would have been taken after the visit.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n India blamed Jaish-e-Mohammed for a December 2001 attack on the Indian parliament that killed 11 people, led to a massive military build-up at the border and brought the two countries almost to the brink of war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n New Delhi later suspended all talks with Islamabad after Islamist gunmen attacked the city of Mumbai in November 2008, killing 166 people in attacks planned from Pakistan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The two countries agreed to resume a peace process in 2011 but tensions spiked again in recent years, with cross-border shelling in Kashmir claiming dozens of lives since 2014.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Authorities had put Punjab on high alert Friday after five gunmen in army fatigues hijacked a car driven by a senior police officer, which was later found abandoned on a highway connecting Pathankot to Kashmir.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was not clear if there was any link with Saturday’s attack.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Suspected Islamist gunmen staged a pre-dawn attack on a key Indian air base near the Pakistan border Saturday with at least two militants killed in a shootout, officials said, striking a blow to the neighbours’ fragile peace proces<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":44477,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":45,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[45,11,33],"tags":[],"coauthors":[2793],"class_list":["post-21920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-global","category-home"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"IQ5J364MYBBKNM334DLOXI6KWY","arc_canonical_url":"\/global\/asia-pacific\/2016\/01\/02\/gunmen-attack-indian-air-force-base-near-pakistan-border\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n