India Terrorist Attack? Pathankot Air Force Base Sees Battle With Gunmen: Reports

UPDATE: 11 p.m. EST -- Four terrorists and two security personnel were killed Saturday morning during a gunbattle at the Pathankot Air Force Base in Punjab, India, NDTV, a local news network, reported. At least four gunmen entered the Indian air force base near the border with Pakistan, but were unable to penetrate the area, air force spokeswoman Rochelle D'Silva told the Associated Press.

The gunbattle has reportedly ended but Pathankot and surrounding areas remain under high alert. A top security official told Agence France-Presse that the gunmen were believed to be from the Jaish-e-Mohammed Islamist group.

UPDATE: 10:55 p.m. EST -- Two gunmen and a guard were killed in Saturday's attack in Punjab, Reuters reported. Border police Chief Vijay Singh said the operation to stop the attack had lasted three hours, the report said.

"The moment that [Indian Prime Minister Narendra] Modi touched down in Lahore (and probably even before), something like this was doomed to happen," said Michael Kugelman, a South Asia expert at the Wilson Center think tank in Washington, Reuters reported. "At this point, there's sufficient goodwill in India-Pakistan relations to weather this attack. Saboteurs won't win this one."

UPDATE: 9:39 p.m. EST -- Indian defense forces were deployed to the Pathankot-Jammu national highway after an attack at an air force base in Punjab, the Times of India reported.

The Punjab base is located not far from the Pakistan border, and a general alert was in place for the vicinity, the Times said. In the past, militants have hijacked vehicles on the highway to carry out strikes against civilians or military forces, the report said.

UPDATE: 933 p.m. EST -- Top Indian officials were gathered in an emergency meeting at an air force base in Delhi in response to the attack Saturday morning at a base in Punjab, the Times of India reported.

UPDATE: 9:25 p.m. EST -- Gunfire was still being heard from inside the Pathankot air force base in Punjab, India, on Saturday morning, local time, the BBC reported, adding that helicopters had been called to the scene as part of the response to an attack by several gunmen.

The attack came just days after India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Pakistani leader Nawaz Sharif met in Lahore in a surprise effort toward peace between the two nations, the BBC noted.

Original story:

Terrorists reportedly attacked the Pathankot Air Force Base in Punjab, India, early Saturday, resulting in a gunbattle near the Pakistan border. NDTV reported that four suspects entered the base in fatigues about 3:30 a.m. local time and opened fire. Two were killed by security forces, according to tweets from Asian News International.

Other attackers were contained in a "non-operational area," NDTV reported.

The Indian Express linked the attack to an incident Friday, in which five men wearing fatigues abducted three men in a police officer's car on the Jammu-Pathankot highway. The victims were robbed, assaulted and later left on the side of the road near where a taxi driver's body recently had been found. The police SUV was found abandoned in Pathankot later Friday.

“We have been looking at it as a terror activity. We also suspect that both incidents could be correlated," Inspector General Lok Nath Angra told the Express on Friday.