India attacked Pakistan in retaliation for the massacre in Kashmir. 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 missiles early Wednesday morning against various targets in Pakistan.
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, claimed 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 were killed and 46 were injured during the attacks. "India has once again unleashed hell in the region," stated Pakistan's National Security Committee, which held an emergency meeting led by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. "The unjustified attacks deliberately targeted civilian areas, under the false pretext of the presence of imaginary terrorist camps," the leader pointed out.
In Pakistani-administered Kashmir, loud explosions were heard near the border areas, and the attacks left the capital, Muzaffarabad, without electricity. However, the Indian missiles were specifically aimed at 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.
The nighttime attacks were mainly directed towards the city of Muridke and its surroundings in Punjab, where Indian forces believe the rebel group, Lashkar-e-Taiba, responsible for the April 22 massacre in Indian-controlled Kashmir, is hiding.
This group, designated as a "terrorist organization" also by the United States and involved in another attack in Mumbai in 2008 with 147 deaths, has been engaged in armed struggle for decades to have the entire Kashmir region, overwhelmingly Muslim, come under Pakistan's control. In Punjab, another terrorist group, Jaish-e-Mohammed, also has its operational base, which was targeted in the Indian attack. The group acknowledged in a statement that ten members of the family of its leader, Maulana Masood Azhar, along with four of his closest lieutenants, were killed.
"Our actions have been targeted, measured, and have not aimed at any escalation. No Pakistani military installation has been attacked. 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 attacks targeted "missile storage centers, recruitment centers, and terrorist indoctrination centers." Pakistani military authorities insist that the targeted areas were home to "numerous families and civilians," and just a day before, they had offered international press to visit some of the bombed locations to verify this.
Pakistan, which has authorized the military to launch harsh retaliations in the coming days, responded with several 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 as prisoners.
Following 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 ten Indian civilians were killed by 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" in response to the 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, there was an enraged nationalist crowd demanding 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) find 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—, 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.
The Wednesday attacks occurred shortly after Modi announced that the flow of water through India's borders would be stopped. After 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. However, 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 it 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.
Watching closely this new chapter in the eternal dispute between the Indian subcontinent's enemies 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 countering 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 recent 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 have been fighting for a long time. They have been fighting for many decades and centuries, in fact. I just hope it ends very soon," said President Donald Trump during an event at the White House.