Colonel among 11 dead in assault on Indian air force base

PATHANKOT,India (Web Desk) - Four more Indian soldiers including a top officer have died of injuries after an attack on an air force base, taking total death toll to 11, officials said Sunday.

Seven soldiers in all including a champion shooter and four attackers were killed at the Pathankot base, after heavily armed gunmen infiltrated the key station early Saturday. An Indian army official, who declined to be named, told media one of the dead was a lieutenant-colonel in the elite commando unit National Security Guard.

The official said the officer and two other soldiers were injured Sunday when a bomb they were trying to defuse exploded during a search of the site. Air force spokeswoman Rochelle D'Silva said three of 12 soldiers injured in the battle died in hospital on Sunday.

More read: Four attackers, 2 soldiers killed as gunmen storm Indian air force base near Pakistan border

"Nine are being treated in hospital and are stable," she said. One of those killed, Subedar Fateh Singh, was a gold medalist at the 1995 Commonwealth Shooting Championships in New Delhi, she said. Singh was killed at the start of the gunfight, which lasted nearly 14 hours.