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SRINAGAR, India, Tuesday (Reuters) A bloc of groups plans to break away from Indian Kashmir's separatist alliance, dealing a blow to hopes for wide-ranging talks with the central government on the future of the disputed region.

Thirteen of the 27 groups in the All Parties Hurriyat (Freedom) Conference have rallied behind hardliner Syed Ali Shah Geelani, a spokesman for the 13 said on Monday. Under the leadership of Moulvi Abbas Ansari, the Hurriyat alliance of political and community groups has shown signs of considering talks with the New Delhi government, but the Geelani bloc insists talks must start with India, Pakistan and Kashmiris at the same time.

"Representatives of various groups held a meeting...and expressed no confidence in Moulvi Abbas Ansari," Masarat Alam, a spokesman for the dissidents, told Reuters. The split came amid a surge in violence in Kashmir, where about a dozen Muslim guerrilla groups have been battling security forces since 1989. More than 100 people have been killed in the past two weeks.

Geelani has the backing of most of the militant groups.

A former Hurriyat leader urged unity in the interests of what he called Kashmir's freedom movement.

"I hope the group of 13 will realise that it is in the interest of the freedom movement, in the interest of the people of Jammu and Kashmir...that we go on together," Abdul Gani Bhat said.

"It is very sad that the political unity of the people of Kashmir as symbolised by Hurriyat has been damaged."

Mostly Muslim Kashmir has been at the centre of half a century of rivalry between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan, which almost went to war in 2002. India has linked fresh talks on improving ties to an end to attacks by the guerrillas.

Geelani had boycotted Hurriyat meetings since late last year, accusing it of failing to punish a member group for defying a boycott and fielding proxy candidates in a state assembly election.

But analysts say the split has more to do with disagreement about Hurriyat's course than the boycott breach.

In the latest violence in the Himalayan region, a prominent Kashmiri Shi'ite leader and politician, Iftikar Hussain Ansari, survived an assassination bid by suspected guerrillas at a shrine in the main city of Srinagar.

Ansari, a state legislature member from the pro-India National Conference party, was not hurt. Troops in southern Kashmir surrounded a mosque in Shopian town after at least one suspected militant sought refuge there after shooting at a security patrol, an army official said, adding that two soldiers had been wounded.

Elsewhere, nine people, including seven militants, were killed in gun battles across the region, police said.

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