Pakistan vows to strike back at India’s ‘act of war’

Islamabad: Pakistan has promised retaliation to an “act of war” after India fired missiles into Pakistani-controlled territory on Wednesday, killing at least 26 people and raising the threat of wider conflict between the nuclear-armed neighbours.

India said it had struck nine “terrorist infrastructure” sites linked to last month’s massacre of tourists in the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir.

Pakistan claimed it shot down several Indian fighter aircraft in response, as two planes fell onto villages in India-controlled Kashmir. At least nine civilians were also killed in the region by Pakistani shelling, the Indian army said in a statement.

Tensions have soared between the two countries since last month’s attack in Kashmir, which India has blamed Pakistan for backing. Islamabad has denied the accusation.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif condemned the airstrikes as “cowardly attacks” and said his country would retaliate.

“Pakistan has every right to give a robust response to this act of war imposed by India, and a strong response is indeed being given,” Sharif said.

The military said at least two mosques had been hit and at least one child had died.

Numerous explosions were heard in the mountains around the city of Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, as well as in two other places in the region, Reuters witnesses and a Pakistan TV channel reported.

Resident Abdul Sammad said he heard several blasts and some people were wounded in the attack. People were seen running in panic, and authorities cut the power, leading to a blackout.

Indian forces struck the headquarters of the Islamist militant groups Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Taiba, an Indian defence source told Reuters.

“India has demonstrated considerable restraint in selection of targets and method of execution,” an Indian statement said.

The army said nine civilians had been killed in retaliatory attacks by Pakistani troops in Indian-controlled Kashmir. In a statement, it said the Pakistan Army “resorted to arbitrary firing”, including gunfire and artillery shelling.

Both Hindu-majority India and Islamic Pakistan claim Muslim-majority Kashmir in full, with each controlling only part and fighting wars over the region in an almost 80-year dispute.

India’s latest action adds to a long list of military conflicts with Pakistan, driving tensions to their highest point since 2019, when they came close to war after a suicide car bombing in Kashmir.

Exchanges raise threat of war

South Asia analyst Michael Kugelman said it was one of the highest-intensity strikes from India on its rival in years and that Pakistan’s response would “surely pack a punch as well”.

“These are two strong militaries that, even with nuclear weapons as a deterrent, are not afraid to deploy sizeable levels of conventional military force against each other,” Kugelman said. “The escalation risks are real. And they could well increase, and quickly.”

India has 180 nuclear warheads and Pakistan 170, according to current estimates by the Federation of American Scientists.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres called for maximum military restraint from both countries.

“The world cannot afford a military confrontation between India and Pakistan,” a UN statement read.

United States President Donald Trump described rising tension between the two nations as “a shame”, while US Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke to officials from both sides, urging them to “avoid escalation”.

Rubio said on X that he was monitoring the situation closely, adding that Washington would continue to engage the two countries to reach a “peaceful resolution”.

Last month, analysts suggested the US may leave India and Pakistan on their own as tensions rose because it has a lot to deal with in achieving diplomatic goals in Russia’s war in Ukraine and Israel’s war in Gaza.

Several Asian airlines said they were re-routing or cancelling flights to and from Europe because of the fighting.

More than two dozen commercial flights were diverted to avoid Pakistani airspace, and airlines cancelled 52 flights to or from Pakistan early on Wednesday, Flightradar24 reported.

Reuters / AP

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