5 soldiers, 4 civilians injured in grenade attacks in Indian Kashmir

SRINAGAR, India (AP) - Five soldiers and four civilians were wounded Friday in a series of grenade attacks by suspected Islamic militants in the main city in the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir, police said.

The first of the five attacks occurred in the afternoon when a grenade was lobbed at a paramilitary bunker in the heart of Srinagar, the summer capital of India's Jammu-Kashmir state, said local police chief Farooq Ahmed.

The grenade missed its target and wounded a civilian instead, he added.

Four other grenade attacks took place within the span of an hour in the evening, wounding five paramilitary soldiers and three civilians, Ahmed said.

No other details were immediately available.

Nearly a dozen Islamic rebel groups have been fighting for Kashmir's independence from mostly Hindu India or its merger with predominantly Muslim Pakistan since 1989. More than 68,000 people have been killed in the conflict.

India accuses Pakistan of arming and training the rebels, a charge Islamabad denies.

Pakistan says it only provides moral and diplomatic support to the rebel groups.