SRINAGAR, India -- Indian soldiers shot dead six rebels including a senior commander during two gunbattles in strife-torn Kashmir, an army spokesman said on Sunday.

The disputed Himalayan region remains at the center of a military standoff between India and Pakistan.

"Four militants of HUJI (Harkat-ul-Jehad Islami) including its senior commander, Abdul Reman, were killed in a fierce encounter with the army near Aithmula area of Baramulla district," an army spokesman said.

Three Pakistani nationals were among the dead, he said.

Baramulla district lies north of Srinagar, the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir state, Reuters reported.

Harkat-ul-Jehad Islami is fighting for Kashmir's merger with neighboring Pakistan.

Earlier on Sunday two other militants were killed in another gunbattle with army in south Kashmir, army said.

About a dozen militant groups are fighting India's rule in Muslim-majority Kashmir, where authorities say about 33,000 people have died in 12 years of rebellion. Separatists put the toll closer to 80,000.

India, which controls 45 percent of disputed Kashmir, accuses Pakistan of arming and training militants. Pakistan, which rules over a third of the area, denies the charge. It says it only offers moral, political and diplomatic support to Kashmiri separatists.

The two nuclear rivals are locked in a tense military stand-off after an attack on India's Parliament last December, which New Delhi blamed on Pakistan-based rebels. About a million troops have been mobilized on both sides of the border.