US tries to halt India, and Pakistan war drums

The nuclear-armed neighbours are now closed off to each other, while Islamabad claimed to have ‘credible intelligence’ of an Indian strike within 36 hours

A trader kicking on the picture of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during an anti-India protest in Karachi on Tuesday. Picture: AFP

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The US has intervened to try to calm spiralling tensions between nuclear-armed Pakistan and India over the massacre of 26 tourists in Kashmir after Islamabad claimed to have “credible intelligence” of an Indian strike within 36 hours.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke with both Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Indian Foreign Minister Jaishankar Subrahmanyam by phone on Thursday, urging them to “de-escalate tensions” and maintain cross-border peace.

Hours earlier, Pakistan’s information minister Attaullah Tarar had claimed New Delhi was preparing to carry out a “military action against Pakistan in the next 24-36 hours”, and India closed its airspace to all Pakistan flights.

The two neighbours are now on a war footing, closed off to each other with no direct flights between them, the Wagah-Atari land border closed since Wednesday and all diplomats expelled on both sides.

Hundreds of citizens of both countries were given just days to return to their home nations before Wednesday’s deadline.

Indian Border Security Force soldiers guard the closed Wagah-Atari border crossing on Thursday. Picture: AFP

Pakistani and Indian forces have continued to exchange small arms fire over the disputed Kashmir border since last week’s massacre, with both sides accusing the other of initiating the armed clashes, even as military commanders from the two countries spoke via a hotline on Tuesday for the first time since the attack.

Pakistani state media claimed on Thursday that the country’s air force had also forced four Indian Rafale jets to retreat after they were detected patrolling over the disputed Kashmir border.

India has accused Pakistan of involvement in the April 22 terror strike by militants on the popular mountain tourist town of Pahalgam in Indian-administered Kashmir in which 26 people were killed, all but one of them Hindu.

Witnesses have said many of those killed were questioned about their religion by the gunmen who emerged from dense surrounding forests, before being shot at point blank range with semiautomatic weapons.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has vowed to pursue the attackers “to the ends of the earth” while Pakistan’s Tarar on Wednesday warned any “military adventurism by India would be responded to assuredly and decisively”.

The deadliest attack on Indian civilians in two decades has prompted a series of escalating tit-for-tat measures by both sides.

Pakistan closed its airspace to all Indian-owned or Indian-operated airlines last week after New Delhi suspended all Pakistani visas, announced the imminent closure of the only land border between the two countries, halted trade and suspended the Indus water sharing treaty.

As tensions threaten to spiral into a full-blown crisis, Mr Rubio urged both countries to work together to maintain peace and defuse tensions, according to US State Department readouts of the two calls.

With Prime Minister Sharif, Mr Rubio underscored “the need to condemn the terror attack on April 22 in Pahalgam” and urged Pakistani officials’ co-operation in investigating the attack in the Kashmiri town, the readout said.

Pakistan has offered a neutral investigation into the incident.

He also encouraged Mr Sharif to “re-establish direct communications” with India.

“Both leaders reaffirmed their continued commitment to holding terrorists accountable for their heinous acts of violence,” the statement said.

Mr Sharif’s office later issued a statement saying he categorically denied Pakistani involvement in the attack, condemned all forms of terrorism, and accused India of worryingly escalatory behaviour.

A separate readout of Mr Rubio’s conversation with Mr Jaishankar said Mr Rubio expressed sorrow over the attack and reiterated the US “commitment to co-operation with India against terrorism” while also encouraging India to “work with Pakistan to de-escalate tensions and maintain peace and security in South Asia”.

The Indian foreign minister later acknowledged the discussion in a social media post in which he called for all “perpetrators, backers and planners must be brought to justice”.

Both Mr Jaishankar and his Pakistani counterpart Ishaq Dar have been rallying global support over the issue which has once again pushed the uneasy neighbours to the brink of war.

Mr Rubio’s call follows a similar appeal by United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres who spoke with both sides on Tuesday and offered to act as mediator “to support de-escalation”, his spokesman said.

Indian security forces have blown up the homes of ten terrorist suspects since the attack and swept up more than 2000 people across Kashmir as it hunts down the perpetrators, while on the Pakistani side of the border many residents are readying underground bomb shelters.

“We are cleaning the bunker to ensure that if the enemy attacks at any time, we are not caught off guard and we can bring our children to safety,” Muhammad Javed, 42, told AFP in the village of Chakothi.

The heavily-militarised Himalayan region was stripped of its semi-autonomous status in 2019 by the Modi government which imposed one of the world’s longest internet blackouts and rounded up dozens of opposition leaders.