SHORTLY AFTER midnight on May 7th, two weeks after a terrorist attack in Kashmir, Indian missiles streaked into Pakistan. India said it had hit “terrorist infrastructure” at nine sites in Pakistani-administered Kashmir and in Punjab. Pakistan said that India had struck six locations in those regions. It denied the sites were used by terrorists and said it had shot down five Indian fighter jets, a claim not confirmed by India. It was the largest aerial attack on Pakistan in more than 50 years.
After the strikes, both sides exchanged artillery and small-arms fire across the “line of control” dividing Kashmir, which is claimed wholly and ruled partly by both countries. India said that killed 13 people on its side; Pakistan said 31 of its civilians were killed in the shooting and the Indian air strikes. But this is almost certainly just the start of the nuclear-armed neighbours’ confrontation. Pakistan said India damaged a hydropower dam and called the attack “an act of war”. Pakistan’s army said it would hit back “at a time and place of its own choosing”. It also said that it shot down 12 Indian aerial drones that entered its airspace in the early hours of May 8th and that killed one civilian. India said on May 8th that it had “neutralised” an attempted overnight missile and drone attack by Pakistan on several military targets and had responded “in the same domain with same intensity” by targeting air-defence radars and systems at several locations in Pakistan.
India’s government had hinted at military retaliation ever since accusing Pakistan-based militants of being involved in an attack on tourists in Kashmir on April 22nd, which killed 26 civilians. That was the bloodiest assault there since 2019 and the deadliest on Indian civilians since one in Mumbai in 2008.
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