At least five Pakistani soldiers have been killed after an explosion near the de facto border with India in the disputed region of Kashmir, Pakistan’s military said, terming it “state-sponsored terrorism” by its eastern neighbour.

Heavy firing exchanges were reported on Friday between Indian and Pakistani forces on the so-called Line of Control (LoC) in the disputed Jammu and Kashmir region, local media reported.

Amid growing needs to modernise the armed forces, the Indian government has kept the defence budget at the level announced during the interim budget in February.

Indian forces killed the spokesman for Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind (AGH) during an operation on June 26. Shabir Ahmad Malik (also known as Abu Ubaidah) was intially a member of Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LeT), but he defected to AGH, becoming a mouthpiece for the upstart al Qaeda group.

The Indian Defense Ministry set in motion last Thursday the process of getting six new submarines built under its new Strategic Partnership program, which aims to increase domestic development by partnering Indian firms with foreign ones to produce military hardware.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said during a trip to India on Wednesday that he remained hopeful that neighboring Pakistan would chose the “right course” in cracking down on Islamist fundamentalists.

India says the leader of Kashmir’s largest separatist group is ready for talks with New Delhi to resolve the conflict over the Himalayan valley.

Firefighters tried to put out the flames for three hours, and it is now feared the blaze caused crippling damage to the stealth destroyer.

All six submarines under the $6.5 billion project will be built with assistance from abroad. The Indian Navy has retained the option to “manufacture six more submarines under the project.”

Indian police raided seven locations in the southern city of Coimbatore on Wednesday in pursuit of a suspected Islamic State cell with links to the suicide bombers who killed over 250 people in Sri Lanka in April, officials said.