JAMMU, INDIA - Seven Islamic militants continued to hold 1,500 Indian troops at bay as a marathon gunbattle continued into a fourth day Friday and the army said it was not in a hurry to end its siege of the thick jungles of southern Kashmir.

The clash that erupted Tuesday between the holed-up rebels and troops in the Kathua forests of southern Indian Kashmir was Friday described as the longest anti-guerrilla operation in the region's 14-year-old Islamic insurgency.

"It is the longest stand-off in Jammu and Kashmir," a security official said, as experts warned the inconclusive fighting could sap the morale of troops and put a question mark over the Indian military strategy.

Officials supervising the gunbattle in dense forests and ravines near the village of Ghatti, in the Kathua border region about 85 kilometres (53 miles) south of Indian Kashmir's winter capital Jammu, rejected the criticism.

"Our strategy is to wear them out. We have no time-frame," said Kashmir Police Inspector-General P.L. Gupta on the fighting, which so far has led to the death of one policeman and injuries to seven others.

"Also, the encounter got prolonged as we did not want our boys to get killed by taking any hasty step in flushing out the rebels," Gupta said.

M.M. Khajuria, a former Kashmir police chief, said the rebels were forcing a local resident to act as a guide in the forests where visibility is sometimes less than three feet (one metre), and urged the security forces to step up operations.

"If the encounter continues for (another) three to four days it can not only cause exhaustion among the troops and the police but also lower their morale," he said.

The military, apparently stung by the growing criticism, said it was not in a hurry to end the seige.

"The operation in Kathua has been deliberate. Time is not a premium," the army said in a statement in the Kashmir summer capital of Jammu.

"It (the delay) is also to ensure that the task is achieved with the least casualties to the armed forces and required action is being taken to trap and eliminate all the terrorists," it added.

The skirmish, after a lull earlier Friday, had since resumed, officials said.

They said the rebels were firing from assault rifles and shooting rocket-propelled grenades while some 1,500 Indian troops were using machineguns and other weaponry to flush out the seven guerrillas.

Army officials at the site said at least one of the guerrillas was firing from a tree top at bunkered soldiers in the ravine-creased Ghatti region of Kathua, which borders Pakistan.

Brigadier Atul Gupte, the army commander in charge of the offensive, said the rugged terrain was the biggest hurdle.

"There has been an inordinate delay in flushing out the rebels because of the difficult mountain and forest terrain where the infiltrators have taken shelter.

Gupte said he believed the guerrillas crossed over from Pakistan to launch attacks to avenge the slaying last week of a top Kashmiri guerrilla commander, Gazi Baba.

The military statement said the army had blunted the retaliatory strikes with its own stepped-up counter-offensive in Kashmir.

"After the elimination of Gazi Baba the terrorists decided to go on the offensive but in actual fact 33 terrorists have been eliminated since August 30 and out of that 20 in the (Muslim-majority) Kashmir Valley and 13 in Jammu.

"Two suicide attacks -- one in Srinagar and another in Poonch -- have been successfully foiled and the attackers eliminated," the statement added.