India said early on Wednesday it had struck in Pakistan two weeks after the death of more than 20 civilians in an Indian-controlled terrorist attack in Kashmir.
The Indian government said its forces have attacked nine locations on the Pakistani side of Pakistan and the conflict Kashmir region. Pakistani military officials said at least eight people were killed and 35 were injured after six attacks in Punjab and parts of Kashmir.
At least two aircraft have been reported to have fallen in India-controlled aspects of India and Kashmir. However, claims that they shot down an Indian aircraft, including Pakistan’s latest fighter plane, have yet to be confirmed.
In recent years, India has hit nearby areas during the period of rising tensions with Kashmir attacked by Pakistan, but Wednesday’s attack in Pakistan on Pakistani territory outside of the contested region represents an escalation in the conflict between the two nuclear-armed countries.
After the attack, India had been seeking response from its neighbour and nemesis, Pakistan, for over 70 years. The two countries fought several latest wars in 1999 and have been framed on the brink many times since. Tensions have once again sharpened, and global leaders are warning of potentially disastrous consequences if both sides cannot escalate.
India said on Wednesday it struck Pakistan after gathering evidence that last month’s attacks on civilians at a tourist destination in Kashmir last month “pointing a clear involvement of Pakistan-based terrorists.” Its military action was “designed to be measured, responsible and inherently unscientific.” It added that it targeted only “known terrorist camps.”
In its own statement on Wednesday, the Pakistani government called the Indian strike a “provocative and blatant act of war” that “violated Pakistan’s sovereignty.”
Pakistan said it would respond with “time and place of its own choice.” Pakistani military officials said they began a “measured but powerful” response.
Indian officials and news channels said at least one aircraft had descended on the Indian side of Kashmir. India’s news reports and witness accounts say that the second aircraft has fallen in Punjab, India.
Analysing photographs of witnesses from one wreckage site in an Indian-controlled village in Kashmir, weapons researchers identified the fragment as an external fuel tank for the plane. Armament Research Services analyst Trevor Ball said the tanks are from either Lafare or Mirage Fighter Jet, both made by French manufacturer Dassault Aviation and used by India. Mr. Ball could not confirm whether the tank came from an aircraft that was hit by an enemy fire.
Pakistani military officials insisted that they would provide evidence without proof that their forces had defeated some Indian aircraft, including the newest and most advanced Rafalejet in the Indian Air Force.
Indian officials and residents of Uri and Poonch regions on the Indian-controlled side of Kashmir reported artillery fire in Pakistan as the cross-border strikes killed at least three people, injured at least 10 people and injured several homes.
Manoj Sinha, the lieutenant governor of India’s Kashmir region, said he ordered villagers to move to safer locations.
At the White House, President Trump called the escalation between India and Pakistan “shame.”
“We just heard about it,” he said of the Indian strike. “They have been fighting for a long time. I hope it ends very quickly,” Indian officials said shortly after the strike, Indian national security adviser Ajit Doval explained military action to Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
A spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres added that “the world cannot afford military conflict between India and Pakistan,” and called for detention from both sides.
However, the scale and nature of the attack by India is likely to cause “significant retaliation” by Pakistan, said Asfandiaar, a senior fellow at the South Asia Program at Stimson Centre in Washington.
After attacks on Indian security forces in India-controlled Kashmir in 2016 and 2019, India carried out a more limited strike on Pakistan-controlled territory. However, this time India has “overcalled two important thresholds in military action,” Mir said by attacking numerous sites in Pakistan and hitting the Pakistan centre of Pakistan in Punjab.
When India built up the possibility of Pakistan’s retaliation, military officials said all air defense units in the country along the border had been revitalized, Indian public broadcasters reported. The airline said several airports, including the airport in Srinagar, the capital of Kashmir’s Indian side, had been closed for civilian travel.
The exact nature of Wednesday’s strike – it was unclear whether they were involved in missiles fired from India or Indian fighters across Pakistan. Pakistani forces said Indian planes did not enter Pakistani airspace when they launched the attack.
Residents of Muzaffarabad, the capital of Kashmir’s Pakistani part, reported that they had heard a jet flying above. They said the land in a rural area near Muzaffarabad, which was once used by Pakistan-based extremist group Rashkar e Tayba, appears to have been targeted for strikes.
A spokesman for the Pakistani military said five other locations were also attacked.
They included locations of religious seminaries associated with Jaish-e-Mohammad, another militant group based in Pakistan, including Bahawalpur in Punjab, Pakistan. Kotori and bugs in Pakistan and managed Kashmir. Shakalgal and Maridke from Punjab. Lashkar-e-Taiba is thought to exist in Muridke
The Indian army is calling military operation Sindoah. This is a reference to the red bugs worn by Hindu women on their hair after marriage. It refers to the horrifying nature of the terrorist attack two weeks ago. There, many wives saw their husbands being killed in front of them.
“Victory over Mother India,” Indian Defense Minister Rajnath Singh wrote in X.
In the attack on April 22, extremists fired fire at tourists in the Indian-controlled area of Kashmir, killing 26 people and injuring more than a dozen others.
The massacre has been one of the worst attacks on Indian civilians for decades, and India quickly suggested that its Pakistani neighbours and large intestines were involved. The two countries have fought several wars over Kashmir, the region they share but each claims overall.
The Pakistani government has denied involvement in the attack, and India has offered little evidence to support the accusations. Still, shortly after the onslaught, India announced a surge in punitive measures against Pakistan.
In Kashmir, the Indian army continued hunting for the perpetrators, arresting hundreds and commenced a drastic clampdown. And India and Pakistan repeatedly exchanged small fires along the border in the days following the attack.
India’s strike on Wednesday is an intensifying conflict. The Pakistani government previously vowed to be kind to Indian invasions, and both countries have the capacity to cause great damage.
India has long accused Pakistan of promoting separatist violence in Kashmir, a scenic and ethnically diverse valley of the Himalayas. The fate of Kashmir was left undecided in 1947 when the British divided their former colony, India, into both countries. Pakistan has a majority Muslims, and India is primarily made up of Hindus.
Shortly afterwards, the Kashmir monarch, who initially chose to independence the majority of Muslim areas, gave it to India as Pakistan sent troops to occupy part of its territory. Currently, both countries are claiming it as a whole while controlling part of Kashmir, and Kashmiris has little to say.
Since the rise of wars and separatist rebellions between the two countries in the region in 1999, Kashmir has remained one of the most militarized regions in the world. Countries have repeatedly come on the brink of war since, including in 2019 when bombings in Kashmir killed at least 40 Indian soldiers.
The bombing was allegedly argued by the extremist Muslim group Jaish-e-Mohammed, which prompted an Indian airstrike within Pakistan, and Indian jets were shot down. The tensions between the nation eased when Pakistan released the pilot.
Reports were provided by Anupreeta Das, Zia Ur-Rehman and Aric Toler.
