ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The Indian military said early Wednesday it had launched strikes against Pakistan in retaliation for last month’s militant attack in Indian-administered Kashmir, putting the nuclear-armed neighbors in direct conflict for the first time in six years.
India’s armed forces said nine sites “from where terrorist attacks against India have been planned and directed” were targeted. The statement said no Pakistani military facilities were hit and characterized the attack as “focused, measured, and non-escalatory in nature.”
But the strikes were swiftly condemned by Pakistan. Officials said eight people were killed, including a child and two teenagers, and 35 injured. “India has shamelessly attacked the civilian population, and the attack will be answered accordingly,” Pakistani Defense Minister Khawaja Asif said on national television.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said in a statement that “Pakistan has every right to give a befitting reply to this act of war imposed by India and a befitting reply is being given.”
Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, Pakistan’s chief military spokesman, told CNNthat two Indian aircraft had been shot down by Pakistan. Soon after, Asif told Geo News that five Indian warplanes had been downed, including French-made Rafales. The claims could not be independently verified, and the Indian government had no immediate response.
Pakistan’s military reported 24 “impacts” across six locations: Ahmedpur East, Muridke and Sialkot in Pakistan, and Kotli, Bagh and Muzaffarabad in Pakistani-administered Kashmir.
Faryal Waheed, 45, was getting ready for bed about 12:30 a.m. in the eastern Pakistani city of Bahawalpur when she heard four loud blasts in quick succession, she said. Her gatekeeper told her he had seen “huge flashes of light in the sky.”
Waheed’s husband, a general surgeon at Bahawalpur’s biggest government hospital, was called in to work about 1 a.m., she said.
“The entire staff has been called in, doctors, nurses and ward boys,” she said. “I’m scared for us.”
Another Bahawalpur resident, 58-year-old Atif Saeed, ran outside when he heard the blasts, hoping to check on his nearby fertilizer warehouse. Police and soldiers were already in the streets, he said, and they urged him to return home.
“We will find out the truth about how many died as the morning comes,” Saeed said.
India’s military response against Pakistan is the most significant since the 1971 war fought between the two countries, said Sushant Singh, a lecturer at Yale University and a former Indian military officer.
“This is not just limited to Kashmir, which is a contested territory,” he said. “… This is mainland Pakistan. This is Pakistani heartland.”
Singh said this level of attack significantly ratchets up tensions between the two countries — and could be tantamount to a declaration of war. India claims to have not hit any Pakistani military targets and framed attacks as “non-escalatory,” Singh said, but Pakistan’s response will guide the next phase of this altercation.
“If they go and hit inside Indian Punjab, or India’s Rajasthan province,” Singh said, referencing two Indian states that border Pakistan, “then it would be absolutely insane. Then we are looking at a different scale.”
Tensions between India and Pakistan have spiked in the aftermath of the April 22 attack by militants in a popular tourist area in Indian-administered Kashmir. Twenty-six people were killed, making it the deadliest assault on Indian civilians since the 2008 attacks in Mumbai. India’s government said the attack had “linkages” to Pakistan, which Islamabad has denied.
In 2019, after another militant attack in Kashmir, India carried out strikes in Pakistan, followed by a brief aerial battle along the Line of Control, which separates Indian- and Pakistani-administered Kashmir. Both countries claim ownership of the Muslim-majority territory, and the dispute has led to wars between them. A fragile ceasefire was reached in 2021 and had held — until now.
“It’s a shame,” President Donald Trump said in the Oval Office, adding that he “hopes it ends very, very quickly.”
The Indian Embassy in Washington said India’s national security adviser, Ajit Doval, spoke with Secretary of State Marco Rubio after the attack and briefed him on the details. “No Pakistani civilian, economic or military targets have been hit,” the embassy said in a statement. “Only known terror camps were targeted.”
Indian officials said they also had briefed counterparts in the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Russia.
Over the past week, the Trump administration had urged the two countries to de-escalate the situation, but New Delhi made clear it would retaliate. In an April 30 phone call, India’s minister of external affairs, S. Jaishankar, told Rubio that Pakistan “must pay a price” and that India would strike its neighbor soon, said two diplomats familiar with the matter, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive details.
Jaishankar said it would be up to Pakistan to decide whether to respond to the Indian counterattack or let that be the end of it, the diplomats said. State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said Rubio encouraged Jaishankar to work with his Pakistani counterpart to “de-escalate tensions and maintain peace and security.”
That same day, the diplomats said, Pakistani officials told Washington that they did not direct the attacks in Kashmir and urged the United States to lead an international investigation into the incident. The State Department did not say if it would support such an investigation, but experts said it was unlikely, especially after the Indian strikes.
China, a key backer of Pakistan, had reiterated its support for the government in Islamabad in recent days. On Monday, Pakistani authorities said China’s ambassador to Pakistan, Jiang Zaidong, met with Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and called the relationship “ironclad.”
At the United Nations, the spokesperson for Secretary General António Guterres said he was “very concerned” about the Indian strikes in Pakistan and was calling for “maximum military restraint from both countries.”
“The world cannot afford a military confrontation between India and Pakistan,” said Stephane Dujarric, Guterres’s spokesperson.
“Because both India and Pakistan have nuclear weapons, any military confrontation is dangerous, no matter how limited the use of force,” said Michael Kugelman, a South Asia analyst based in Washington.
“Neither country has any interest in a hot war … but one shouldn’t be complacent about the risks, especially given the possibility of miscalculations.”
Following the Indian strikes, Pakistani forces fired artillery across the Line of Control, India’s military said, adding that it was “responding appropriately in a calibrated manner.”
