Muzaffarabad, Pakistan – Pakistan has warned it will “avenge” those killed by Indian air strikes that New Delhi said were in response to an attack in Kashmir, signalling an imminent escalation in the worst violence in decades between the nuclear-armed neighbours.
India’s army said it destroyed nine “terrorist camps” in Pakistan in the early hours of Wednesday, two weeks after New Delhi blamed Islamabad for backing an attack on tourists in the Indian-administered side of disputed Kashmir — a charge Pakistan denies.
Pakistan military spokesman Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry said five Indian jets had been downed across the border.
An Indian senior security source, who asked not to be named, said three of its fighter jets had crashed on home territory.
The two sides have exchanged heavy artillery fire along the Line of Control that divides Kashmir, which both countries claim in full but administer separately.
The South Asian neighbours have fought two full-scale wars over the divided territory since they were carved out of the sub-continent after gaining independence from British rule in 1947.
“There were terrible sounds during the night, there was panic among everyone,” said Muhammad Salman, who lives close to a mosque in Pakistan-administered Kashmir that was hit by an Indian strike.
“We are moving to a safer place… we are homeless now,” added 24-year-old Tariq Mir, who was hit in the leg by shrapnel.
India said that its actions “have been focused, measured and non-escalatory”.
Pakistan Defence Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif accused Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi of launching the strikes to “shore up” his domestic popularity, adding that Islamabad “won’t take long to settle the score”.
‘People are fleeing’
On Wednesday night, the Pakistani military spokesman said firing was “ongoing” at the Line of Control and that Islamabad would take retaliatory action against the air strikes.
Chaudhry reiterated Pakistan’s “right to respond, in self-defence, at time, place, and manner of its choosing,” adding that the armed forces had been “authorised” to do so by the government.
The largest Indian strike was on an Islamic seminary near the Punjab city of Bahawalpur, killing 13 people, according to the Pakistan military.
A government health and education complex in Muridke, 30 kilometres (20 miles) from Lahore, was blown apart, along with the mosque in Muzaffarabad — the main city of Pakistan-administered Kashmir — killing its caretaker.
Four children were among those killed in Wednesday’s attacks, according to the Pakistan military.
Pakistan also said a hydropower plant in Kashmir was targeted by India, damaging a dam structure, after India threatened to stop the flow of water on its side of the border.
India’s Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said the operation was New Delhi’s “right to respond” following the attack on tourists in Pahalgam in Kashmir last month.
Pakistan has denied any involvement in that assault, which killed 26 people, mainly Hindu men, on April 22.
In Muzaffarabad, United Nations military observers arrived to inspect the mosque that Islamabad said was struck by India.
Residents collected damaged copies of the Koran from among concrete, wood, and iron debris.
In Indian-administered Kashmir, residents fled in panic from the Pakistani shelling.
“There was firing from Pakistan, which damaged the houses and injured many,” said Wasim Ahmed, 29, from Salamabad village. “People are fleeing.”
Calls for restraint
India had been widely expected to respond militarily to the Pahalgam attack, which it blamed on Pakistan-based group Lashkar-e-Taiba, a UN-designated terrorist organisation.
The two nations had traded days of threats and tit-for-tat diplomatic measures, and Pakistan conducted two missile tests.
The Indian army has reported nightly gunfire along the heavily militarised Line of Control since April 24.
Diplomats and world leaders have piled pressure on both countries to step back from the brink.
“The world cannot afford a military confrontation between India and Pakistan,” the spokesman for UN chief Antonio Guterres said.
On Wednesday, US President Donald Trump called for a halt to the fighting, adding: “If I can do anything to help, I will be there.”
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi was expected in New Delhi late on Wednesday, two days after a visit to Islamabad, as Tehran seeks to mediate.
Rebels in Indian-administered Kashmir have waged an insurgency since 1989, seeking independence or a merger with Pakistan.
India regularly blames Pakistan for backing armed groups fighting its forces in Kashmir, a charge that Islamabad denies.
With Pakistan-India, Trump turns back to cautious US diplomacy
Trump did not criticize India after it carried out retaliatory strikes against Pakistan but has pleaded for a quick resolution.
“It’s so terrible,” Trump said Wednesday. “I get along with both. I know both very well, and I want to see them work it out. I want to see them stop.”
India briefed Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is also interim national security advisor, on the overnight strikes.
After the Kashmir attack, Rubio spoke to Pakistan’s prime minister to urge condemnation and cooperation but also asked India’s foreign minister to avoid escalation.
Lisa Curtis, who was the National Security Council senior director on South Asia during Trump’s first term, said the United States remained unique in its influence on both sides.
“There are other countries that are worried and may be in touch with their Indian and Pakistani counterparts, but when it comes down to it, it is the role and responsibility of the United States to help the countries find a face-saving way out of the crisis,” said Curtis, now a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security.
In 2019, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi also ordered strikes after a deadly attack, which was against soldiers rather than civilians.
Mike Pompeo, then Trump’s secretary of state, later said that he defused tensions after an Indian official contacted him to voice suspicion that Pakistan was readying a nuclear strike.
“I do not think the world properly knows just how close the India-Pakistan rivalry came to spilling over into a nuclear conflagration,” Pompeo wrote in his memoir.
Leverage with Pakistan
India blames Islamabad for the attack and points to remarks beforehand by Pakistan’s army chief Asim Munir who called Kashmir — the Muslim-majority Himalayan region divided between the powers — as Pakistan’s “jugular vein.”
Pakistan denies responsibility for the attack.
Former president Joe Biden had little patience for Pakistan, keeping it at arm’s length as he fumed over Islamabad’s role in the two-decade Afghanistan war.
Pakistan was stunned late in Biden’s term when his deputy national security advisor, Jon Finer, called its long-range missiles “an emerging threat” to the United States, Islamabad’s Cold War-era military partner.
Trump on returning to the White House quickly invited Modi but Pakistan has also reached out, arresting a purported perpetrator of the 2021 suicide bombing in Kabul on US troops, with Trump trumpeting the move in an address to Congress.
“One of the motivating factors for Pakistan to de-escalate this situation is in order to have a better relationship with the United States,” Curtis said.
Manjari Chatterjee Miller, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said that the United States faced a dilemma on its public stance.
“If the United States government were to be seen as either unsupportive of India or interfering in any way in Kashmir, it would be a serious setback to the US-India partnership. But the risk of escalation between two nuclear-armed neighbors is also real,” she wrote in an essay.
Placing priorities
Trump has largely sidelined career diplomats since his return, relying on his friend Steve Witkoff to crisscross the globe.
Trump has so far failed in his quest to quickly end the Ukraine war and Israel has ended a Gaza ceasefire with Hamas, with Witkoff still pursuing diplomacy with Iran and recently reaching a deal with Yemen’s Huthi rebels.
“The Trump administration has several global crises to deal with currently and would like to avoid another one right now,” said Aparna Pande, a research fellow at the Hudson Institute.
“The Trump administration would also like the focus to remain on trade and commerce and the competition with China and any conflict detracts India, a partner in this endeavor, away from these efforts,” she said.
