Escalation Raises Fears of Wider Conflict Between Nuclear-Armed Rivals
NEW DELHI/ISLAMABAD — Tensions flared sharply in South Asia after India launched airstrikes across the border into Pakistan, prompting a forceful response from Islamabad.
While initial reports of damages and casualties remain unconfirmed by independent observers, Indian defense officials described the missile strikes as targeting terrorist infrastructure related to the April 22 attack in Pahalgam, where five armed militants killed 26 non-Muslim tourists in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir.
The operation, named “Operation Sindoor,” targeted sites in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir, which India claims were linked to Islamist militant groups such as Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Taiba. The region has remained a point of contention between the two nuclear-armed states since 1947.
Though New Delhi hailed the strikes as a victory, reports indicate that at least two Indian jets were lost during the operation. According to various accounts, including those cited by The New York Times, one aircraft crashed in Indian-administered Kashmir, while another went down in Indian territory:
The Indian government said its forces had struck nine sites in Pakistan and on Pakistan’s side of the disputed Kashmir region, in what it described as retaliation for a terrorist attack that killed 26 civilians in Kashmir. Pakistani military officials said that more than 20 people had been killed and dozens injured after six places were hit on the Pakistani side of Kashmir and in Punjab Province. Residents of the Indian side of Kashmir said at least 10 people had been killed in shelling from the Pakistani side since India carried out its strikes.
The two countries have fought repeated wars, with the disputed area of Kashmir as a prime flashpoint, since Pakistan was cleaved off from India in 1947 at the end of the British colonial rule in the subcontinent.
But in recent years, particularly after both built deterrence through nuclear weapons in the 1990s, their military confrontations had been limited to largely along their border regions. While India in recent years has struck Pakistan-administered Kashmir and areas close to it during periods of rising tensions, the attack on Wednesday included strikes on Punjab, in mainland Pakistan, for the first time in more than half a century.
India said on Wednesday that it had struck Pakistan after gathering evidence “pointing towards the clear involvement of Pakistan-based terrorists” in last month’s attack on civilians in a tourist area in Kashmir. It said that its military actions had been “measured, responsible and designed to be nonescalatory in nature.” It added that it had targeted only “known terror camps.”
Both nations have heightened military alertness, with artillery exchanges reported along the Line of Control. International leaders, including the U.N., have expressed concern, urging both nuclear-armed countries to exercise restraint and seek diplomatic solutions
The developments mark one of the most serious escalations in recent decades between the long feuding neighbors, who have fought multiple wars and repeated border skirmishes since their partition 78 years ago.
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Has anyone else figured out that the root of all the wars that seem to crop up are the hostile attitudes, and actions 95% of the time are created by Islamists? Then seem to constantly be pushing forward with their desire to take over the world and subject everyone else to their rules. If you refuse or rebuff you become their next target to be killed. Further they have taken upon themselve the mass immigration from the mid east to easy to take over Christian nations, set up Islamic communities, suck the system dry of welfare using multiple sources to the same head of a family, build Mosic’s everywhere to teach radicalism and hate for the west. Then they move into politics, get elected by the Islamics immigrants they are. After that they set up a provision to just keep applying pressure, coming up with excuses for their increased crime, and will eventually after they have destroyed an area and turned it into a western middle east, move on to the next area and repeat. It was said over 80 years ago that the Islamics should never be allowed to perminately immigrate to the west in that they cannot intigrate into a Christian society satisfactoryly. If you think back, Barrack Obama and Hillary Clinton were the ones that got all this Islamic immigration started and for what….personal wealth increases. Both are evil and both neither pone of them could care less about the west of America. Then depend on a protective army of people around them. In addition George Soros has financed most of what is going on in that he wants an open society where people can come and take over, move into your homes, take you personal items, and push you out the door and you not have any recourse because he owns the District Attorney’s, Judges, Govenors, and many members of our corrupt Congress.