India launches Operation Sindoor, exchanges heavy fire with Pakistan
India’s military has launched Operation Sindoor, striking nine sites in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir, prompting swift retaliation from Islamabad in the worst fighting in more than two decades between the nuclear-armed neighbours as fears of a wider, prolonged war grow.
Pakistan said on Wednesday that at least 26 people were killed and 46 others injured in the Indian attacks, accusing New Delhi of committing an “act of war”. India said at least eight people were killed by Pakistani shelling.
The leaders of both countries are holding crisis meetings on Wednesday.
The Indian strike and counterattack by Pakistan come amid soaring tensions, after a deadly attack last month on tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir that New Delhi blamed on Islamabad, which denied any involvement.
In a statement early on Wednesday, India’s government said its military had attacked “terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir from where terrorist attacks against India have been planned and directed”.
“Our actions have been focused, measured and non-escalatory in nature. No Pakistani military facilities have been targeted. India has demonstrated considerable restraint in selection of targets and method of execution,” it said.
The missiles struck locations in Pakistan-administered Kashmir and the country’s eastern Punjab province.
Al Jazeera’s Kamal Hyder, reporting from Islamabad, said the cities of Muzaffarabad and Kotli, both in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, were among the targets of the Indian strikes.
“Pakistani Defence Minister Khawaja Asif, speaking to a foreign TV network, confirmed that at least five Indian aircraft have been shot down and that a number of Indian soldiers have been taken prisoner,” Hyder said.
“Pakistan said that it would respond to any Indian attack against Pakistan, and Pakistan is now responding to that Indian attack,” he said.
“Heavy shelling has now resumed on the Line of Control that separates Pakistan-administered Kashmir from Indian-administered Kashmir,” he added.
A Pakistani military spokesman had earlier told the broadcaster Geo that at least five locations, including two mosques, had been hit. He also said that Pakistan’s response was under way, without providing details.
In Punjab, missiles hit a mosque in the city of Bahawalpur, killing a child and wounding two civilians, the military said.
International Crisis Group’s Senior Analyst for India, Praveen Donthi, says that the “escalation between India and Pakistan has already reached a larger scale than during the last major crisis in 2019” with “potentially dire consequences”.
“Domestic emotions are high on both sides, fuelling the danger of further escalation,” he said, but “India and Pakistan should choose diplomacy, as any further military action carries unacceptable risks.”
Following India’s attacks, the armies of the two sides exchanged intense shelling and heavy gunfire across their frontier in disputed Kashmir in at least three places, the Reuters news agency reported, quoting police and witnesses.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for maximum restraint from both sides.
“The secretary-general is very concerned about the Indian military operations across the Line of Control and international border. He calls for maximum military restraint from both countries,” Guterres’s spokesperson said.
“The world cannot afford a military confrontation between India and Pakistan.”
United States President Donald Trump said the clashes were “a shame”.
“I just hope it ends very quickly,” Trump said at the White House.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that he is also closely monitoring the situation, adding that he hopes it will end “quickly”.
The eruption of violence comes amid heightened tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbours, in the aftermath of an attack on tourists in Pahalgam in Indian-administered Kashmir last month.
India blamed Pakistan for the violence, in which 26 men were killed, and promised to respond. Pakistan denied that it had anything to do with the killings.
Nitasha Kaul, the director of the Centre for the Study of Democracy at the University of Westminster, London, said the strikes are “very concerning”.
“Once again, the worst affected are going to be the people in the region, the Kashmiris, who are caught between the competing and proprietorial and rival postures and attitudes of India and Pakistan,” Kaul told Al Jazeera.
Still, she said, the escalation is “not that surprising, because within India … there has been a domestic pressure building up for a more militarist response, given the fact that there is a particularly hyper-nationalist government in power.
“In that sense, sadly, this was a countdown to a greater escalation, and hopefully it won’t proceed much further beyond what has already happened with these strikes,” Kaul added.
Source: Al Jazeera and news agencies
