India fired missiles at Pakistan on Wednesday morning, saying it was retaliation for the massacre of Indian tourists last month. Pakistan called the strikes an act of war and said it shot down several Indian fighter jets.
India's defence ministry said strikes targeted at least nine sites “where terrorist attacks against India were being planned”.
Pakistan's military said rockets hit six towns and villages in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir and Punjab province, killing more than two dozen people, including children.
Pakistan said it reserved the right to respond, raising the specter that the spat could escalate into a full-scale conflict. It is already the rivals' worst standoff since 2019, when they came close to war.
The strikes were followed by an intense exchange of fire that officials in each country said left more people dead. Indian police and local residents said three of the planes crashed into villages in Indian-controlled territory, although it was not immediately clear whether Pakistan had shot them down.
Tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbours have risen sharply since an April attack in which militants killed 26 people, mostly Hindu Indian tourists, in Indian-controlled Kashmir, in some cases killing the men in front of their wives.
India has accused Pakistan of involvement in the attack, which was claimed by a militant group calling itself Kashmir Resistance. India has said the group is linked to Lashkar-e-Taiba, a disbanded Pakistani militant group.
India and Pakistan have fought two of their three wars over the Himalayan region of Kashmir, which is divided between them and which both countries claim in full.
Following the massacre, the rivals expelled diplomats and citizens of each other, closed borders and blocked airspace. India also suspended a key water-sharing agreement with Pakistan.
Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif condemned the airstrikes and said his country would retaliate.
“Pakistan has every right to give a decisive response to this act of war imposed by India and a decisive response is indeed being given,” Mr Sharif said.
He said his country would avenge the dead but gave no details, fuelling fears of a full-scale conflict between the two countries.
It is not yet clear whether Pakistan's claim to have shot down the fighter jets was a retaliatory strike or whether more strikes will follow.
The country's National Security Committee said Pakistan reserves the right to retaliate “in self-defence, at any time, anywhere and in any manner it chooses.”
The statement said the strikes were carried out “under the false pretext of imaginary terrorist camps” and that civilians were killed as a result.
South Asia analyst Michael Kugelman said India's strikes against its adversary were among the most intense in recent years and that Pakistan's response “will likely be forceful as well.”
“These are two strong militaries that, even with nuclear weapons as a deterrent, are not afraid to use significant levels of conventional forces against each other,” Mr. Kugelman said.
“The risks of escalation are real. And they could well increase, and quickly.”
In 2019, the two countries came close to war after a Kashmiri rebel rammed an explosive-laden car into a bus carrying Indian soldiers, killing 40. India launched airstrikes into Pakistan, and Pakistan shot down an Indian warplane and captured the pilot, who was later released.
US President Donald Trump called the escalation of the conflict “horrible” and called on both sides to stop the violence.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for maximum restraint because the world cannot “afford a military confrontation” between India and Pakistan, spokesman Stephane Dujarric said in a statement.
China also called for calm. Beijing is Pakistan's largest investor and has multiple border disputes with India, including one in the northeastern Kashmir region.
Pakistan's National Security Committee met on Wednesday morning. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a special meeting of the cabinet committee on security and postponed his upcoming trip to Norway, Croatia and the Netherlands.
Several Indian states held civil defence drills on Wednesday to train civilians and security personnel on how to deal with an attack.
The missile strikes hit six targets, killing at least 26 people, including women and children, Pakistani military spokesman Lt Gen Ahmed Sharif said.
The strikes wounded another 38 people, while five more were killed in Pakistan in border clashes later in the day, officials said.
Indian jets damaged the dam's infrastructure in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, military spokesman Lt Gen Sharif said, calling it a violation of international norms.
Strikes also occurred near at least two sites previously linked to militant groups that have since been banned, according to Pakistan. One struck the Subhan mosque in the Punjab city of Bahawalpur, killing 13 people, according to Zohaib Ahmed, a doctor at a nearby hospital.
The mosque is next to a seminary that was once the headquarters of Jaish-e-Mohammed, a militant group banned in 2002. Officials say the group has had no operational presence at the site since it was banned.
Another rocket hit a mosque in Muridke, Punjab, damaging it. The sprawling building nearby served as Lashkar-e-Taiba's headquarters until 2013, when Pakistan banned the militant group and arrested its founder.
India's defence ministry called the strikes “targeted, measured and non-escalatory.”
“No Pakistani military installation was attacked,” the statement said, adding that “India demonstrated considerable restraint.”
There have been heavy clashes along the Line of Control that divides the disputed region of Kashmir between India and Pakistan.
Indian police and medics said 12 civilians were killed and at least 40 wounded in Pakistani shelling in Poonch district near the heavily militarised de facto border. At least 10 civilians were also wounded in Kashmir's Uri sector, police said.
Shortly after the Indian strikes, the planes crashed in three villages: two in Indian-controlled Kashmir and the third in the northern Indian state of Punjab.
Lt Gen Sharif said the country's air force shot down five Indian jets in retaliation for the strikes. India has not commented on Pakistan's claim.
Debris from one plane was scattered across the village, including inside a school and a mosque, police and residents said, as firefighters spent hours trying to put out the blazes.
Another plane crashed in an open field in Bharda Kalan village.
A third plane crashed in a farmer's field in Punjab, a police official told The Associated Press.
Sourse: breakingnews.ie
