NEW DELHI, May 25 (AFP) - More than a quarter of some 400 Moslem guerrillas who entered Kashmir from bordering Pakistan have been killed by the Indian army, an Indian military commander said here on Tuesday. "Scores of others have been wounded following retaliatory action in the Kargil sector by the Indian army," Additional Director-General of Military Operations Major General J.J. Singh told a news conference. The claim came as an artillery duel between India and Pakistan in the border district of Kargil went into its 17th day on Tuesday with heavy casualties acknowledged on the Indian side. Singh said: "The Indian army, which has been able to stabilise the situation in Kargil to a fair degree, has lost 17 soldiers, while 90 soldiers have been injured and 14 including three officers are missing." He also accused Pakistan of helping the intruders to cross the line of control dividing the Pakistani and Indian zones of the disputed Himalayan state. "The recent visits by the Pakistan army chief to areas like Skarda (a frontier post in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir) shows the degree of their involvement in the sinister operations. Singh said the Moslem guerrillas in Kargil were equipped with the latest weaponry and gadgets such as snow mobile scooters and added they were guided by Pakistani radar from across the borders. "But we reacted faster than they anticipated. The operation will be time consuming due to difficult terrain," he said, but declined to comment on the cross-border shellings in Kargil. More than half of some 80,000 civilians fled Kargil after Pakistani shells began pounding the remote countryside district. An official source in Srinagar said one civilian was killed and several houses damaged in Kargil since late Monday. A helipad nearby had come under heavy artillery fire. They claimed that Indian forces had surrounded the remaining Moslem rebels, who had been pushed into Indian territory under cover of fire by Pakistani border guards. Sharma hinted the army would not hesitate to use greater fire-power to bring down the remaining fighters from the Kargil heights. "Whatever is required will be done," he said when asked if India planned to use combat jets in Kargil. Pakistan has warned the use of air-power in the frontier zone will not be tolerated and only escalate the current fighting, one of the worst clashes between the two rival armies in the region since 1988. Fresh fighting, meanwhile, erupted in the Siachen glacier region of Kashmir, military officials said in this summer capital of the Himalayan state. Harsh weather on the 77-kilometre-long (48-mile) glacier, which is known as the world's highest battlefield, has claimed more lives than actual fighting on the icy wasteland. Pakistan's ambassador to India, Ashraf Jehangir Qazi, last Saturday accused India of starting the artillery duel which began May 9 across the border in divided Kashmir. Two-thirds of the Himalayan region of Kashmir is under India's control while the northern third is held by Pakistan. The two countries have fought two wars over the territory since their independence from Britain in 1947.  