Charlie Campbell
The crisis embroiling India and Pakistan continues to spiral. Pakistan’s military claims to have killed 40 to 50 Indian troops along their de facto border in Kashmir and downed 29 Indian drones during Thursday night and Friday morning, in response to India striking multiple locations in Pakistan on Wednesday that it claimed were “terrorist camps.”
The current unrest was sparked by last month’s deadly terrorist attack on tourists in the India-controlled part of the restive region of Kashmir, which left 25 Indians and one Nepali national dead. New Delhi has pinned the bloodshed on Islamabad, which denies complicity and called for an independent investigation. But with both sides blaming the other for every escalation, full blown war appears worryingly close.
On Thursday, Pakistani Army Chief General Asim Munir stood atop a tank during a military exercise to address his troops. “Let there be no ambiguity,” he said. “Any military misadventure by India will be met with a swift, resolute, and notch-up response.”
For Bharat Karnad, an emeritus professor in national security studies at New Delhi’s Centre for Policy Research, everything rests on Munir, who’s “something of a hot head,” he says. “He’s a Quranic literalist, one of the true believers, who’s spoken about Ghazwa-e-Hind,” referring to a holy war against India mentioned in the Hadith.
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