Two weeks after the brutal killing of 26 civilians in Indian-controlled Kashmir, the military escalation between the two nuclear-armed neighbors is heading towards a dangerous war scenario: the Indian army launched missile attacks on several targets in Pakistan early Wednesday morning.
From New Delhi, they argued that they had unleashed a "limited military offensive against terrorist infrastructure," specifically targeting nine Pakistani objectives. They called it "Operation Sindoor." Pakistan, on the other hand, claims that the Indian attack was aimed at civilians and that several mosques were bombed in six different locations on its territory.
Islamabad stated that at least 26 civilians died and 46 were injured during the attacks. In Pakistani-administered Kashmir, loud explosions were heard near the border areas, and the attacks left the capital, Muzaffarabad, without electricity.
Indian missiles also targeted Punjab, Pakistan's second-largest province. The most severe attack occurred at a mosque in Ahmedpur Sharqia, near the city of Bahawalpur, where 13 people, including two three-year-old girls, died.
Since the end of last week, when Pakistani authorities warned of an imminent attack by the Indian army, residents living on both sides of the border dividing the disputed region of Kashmir have been preparing for war, taking refuge in underground bunkers and stocking up on basic supplies. It was around 1:00 a.m. when the first explosions alerted the local population to the start of the attack.
"Our actions have been focused, measured, and have not aimed at any escalation. No Pakistani military installation has been targeted. India has shown considerable restraint in target selection and execution method," read a statement from the Indian government.
Hours later, an Indian army spokesperson reiterated in a press conference that the nighttime attacks targeted "missile storage centers, recruitment centers, and terrorist indoctrination centers." Pakistani military authorities insist that the attacked areas were home to "numerous families and civilians," and just a day earlier, they had offered the international press to visit some of the bombed locations to verify it.
Pakistan responded in the early hours with several retaliatory attacks along the border. The Pakistani Ministry of Defense stated that their troops had shot down five Indian fighter jets and had also taken some enemy soldiers prisoner.
Pakistan's Prime Minister, Shehbaz Sharif, blamed India for carrying out "cowardly attacks" against his country. "Pakistan has every right to respond forcefully to this act of war imposed by India, and is giving a strong response," the leader wrote on his X account.
After the Indian airstrikes inside Pakistan, troops on both sides engaged in a shootout at various points along the Line of Control, the militarized border. Indian authorities reported that at least seven Indian civilians died from Pakistani gunfire and bombings from border posts. All deaths occurred in the Poonch district, which is very close to the border. "Pakistani troops resorted to arbitrary firing, including artillery shelling," the Indian army pointed out.
India's Ministry of Defense defended that their country's offensive was part of a "commitment" following Islamic terrorist attacks on April 22 that left 25 Indians and one Nepali dead. Since then, the noise around a new armed confrontation between Indians and Pakistanis has been increasing.
In Delhi, a furious nationalist crowd demanded revenge from Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who from the beginning blamed Pakistan for being behind the Islamic group that claimed the attack. The Pakistani government denied any involvement in the killings.
This is not the first time that the two largest countries in South Asia (with a combined population of over 1.6 billion people, approximately one-fifth of the world's population) have found themselves under the shadow of a possible war. In the Kashmir Valley, India and Pakistan have fought three of their four previous wars. Since gaining independence from British rule in 1947, both countries have controlled parts of Kashmir —and China a third—, which is divided by one of the most militarized borders in the world, the Line of Control (LOC), established under a fragile ceasefire that has been broken several times.
For decades, armed insurgents in Indian-controlled Muslim-majority Kashmir have resisted Delhi's rule. Some rebels support unification with Pakistan, while others fight for the entire region to become an independent country. Violence escalated in 2019 when the Indian government under nationalist Modi revoked the region's special status, which had granted it limited autonomy since 1949, allowing Kashmir to maintain its own constitution and the freedom to pass its own laws.
The Wednesday attacks occurred shortly after Modi announced that the flow of water through India's borders would be halted. Following the attack and India's initial repressive measures, the neighboring country expelled Indian diplomats, canceled hundreds of issued visas, and closed its airspace to Indian planes. But Delhi's blow was greater with the suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty, which was 65 years old and allowed for water supply through the Indus River crucial for Pakistan's vast agricultural sector, on which Pakistan heavily relies. Pakistan warned that any interference in this supply would constitute an act of war.
The treaty regulated the distribution and use of waters that irrigate 80% of Pakistan's agriculture and its hydroelectric power. "Not a single drop of water intended for India will reach Pakistan," warned Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, Indian Minister of Culture, a few days ago. This comment raised fears that Delhi could turn a water supply that sustains millions of people in the neighboring country into a weapon of war.
On Wednesday morning, Pakistan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a strong statement accusing India of carrying out a "blatant and unprovoked act of war." The declaration accuses Indian authorities of using the "terrorism specter to promote their false victimization narrative, endangering regional peace and security." They claim that "India's reckless action has brought the two nuclear-armed states closer to a major conflict."
Watching closely this new chapter in the eternal dispute between the enemies of the Indian subcontinent are the two major superpowers, the United States and China. The U.S. maintains a traditional alliance with Delhi -an important partner for Washington in its effort to counter China's influence in the region- while the Asian giant, which also shares a long history of border confrontation with India, openly supports Pakistan.
Following the latest confrontation, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated that Washington is working with Indian and Pakistani leaders to achieve a peaceful solution. "It's a shame. I guess people knew something was going to happen, based on a bit of the past. They've been fighting for a long time. They've been fighting for many decades and centuries, in fact. I just hope it ends very soon," President Donald Trump said during an event at the White House.