Two killed in first suicide bombing in Pakistan Kashmir

MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan (Reuters) - Two soldiers were killed and three wounded in a suicide bomb attack in Pakistani Kashmir on Friday, the military said, the first such bombing in Pakistan's part of the disputed Himalayan region.

Islamist militants have carried out a series of bomb attacks across Pakistan in recent weeks in retaliation for a military offensive in the northwest but there have been no such attacks in Pakistan's part of disputed Kashmir.

"The bomber blew himself up near a military vehicle. Two of our soldiers embraced martyrdom," a military spokesman told Reuters.

Kashmir is at the core of a dispute between Pakistan and India and the cause of two of their three wars since their independence from British rule in 1947.

Separatist insurgents backed by Pakistan have been fighting Indian security forces in India's part of the Himalayan region for the past 20 years.

(Writing by Abu Arqam Naqash and Zeeshan Haider; Editing by Robert Birsel and Sanjeev Miglani)