India fired missiles at Pakistani territory early Wednesday in a major escalation of tensions between the nuclear-armed rivals, with Islamabad vowing retaliation.
The Indian government said it had attacked nine sites, describing them as “precision strikes at terrorist camps” in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, days after it blamed Islamabad for a deadly attack on the Indian-administered side of the disputed region.
Three civilians had been wounded in the strikes, which hit at least five locations, Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif told AFP.
“We have confirmed reports of three civilians killed that includes one child,” Asif said.
Earlier, Pakistan’s military said that the five locations included three in Pakistan-administered Kashmir and two — Bahawalpur and Muridke — in the country’s most populous province of Punjab.
AFP correspondents in Pakistani-run Kashmir and Punjab heard several loud explosions.
“We will retaliate at the time of our choosing,” said Pakistani military spokesman Lieutenant-General Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, calling the strikes a “heinous provocation”.
Shortly after, India accused Pakistan of firing artillery across the Line of Control, the de facto border in Kashmir, which could be heard by AFP correspondents in the region.
India had been widely expected to respond militarily to the April 22 attack on tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir last month by gunmen it said were from Pakistani group Lashkar-e-Taiba, a UN-designated terrorist organisation.
That assault left 26 people dead, mainly Hindu men, in the tourist hotspot of Pahalgam. No group has claimed responsibility.
New Delhi has blamed Islamabad for backing the attack, sparking a series of heated threats and diplomatic tit-for-tat measures.
Pakistan rejects the accusations, and the two sides have exchanged nightly gunfire since April 24 along the de facto border in Kashmir, the militarised Line of Control, according to the Indian army.
Wednesday’s missile strikes are a dangerous heightening of friction between the South Asian neighbours, who have fought multiple wars since they gained independence from the British in 1947.
For days the international community has piled pressure on Pakistan and India to step back from the brink of war.
Asked about the strikes, US President Donald Trump told reporters in Washington he hopes the fighting “ends very quickly”.
– Explosions near LoC –
The Indian army, in a video posted on its X account after Wednesday’s strikes, said “justice is served”, with New Delhi adding that its actions “have been focused, measured and non-escalatory in nature”.
“No Pakistani military facilities have been targeted,” it added. “India has demonstrated considerable restraint in selection of targets and method of execution”.
Indian fighter jets could be heard flying over Srinagar, the capital of Indian Kashmir.
Loud explosions could also be heard in the town of Poonch, only about 10 miles (16 kilometres) from the Line of Control.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had earlier said India would “identify, track and punish every terrorist and their backer” who carried out the attack at Pahalgam last month.
Indian police have issued wanted posters for three suspects — two Pakistanis and an Indian — who they say belong to Lashkar-e-Taiba.
The Pakistani military said it launched two missile tests in recent days, including of a surface-to-surface missile with a range of 450 kilometres (280 miles) — about the distance from the Pakistan border to New Delhi.
India was set to hold several civil defence drills Wednesday preparing people to “protect themselves in the event of a hostile attack”.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi is expected in New Delhi on Wednesday, two days after talks in Islamabad with Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.
Tehran has offered to mediate between the two nations, and Araghchi will be the first senior foreign diplomat to visit both countries since the April 22 attack sent relations plunging.
Rebels in Indian-administered Kashmir have waged an insurgency since 1989, seeking independence or a merger with Pakistan.
India regularly blames its neighbour for backing armed groups fighting its forces in Kashmir, a charge that Islamabad denies.
– ‘Act of war’ –
The strikes came just hours after Modi said that water flowing across India’s borders would be stopped. Pakistan had warned that tampering with the rivers that flow from India into its territory would be an “act of war.”
Modi did not mention Islamabad specifically, but his speech came after New Delhi suspended its part of the 65-year-old Indus Waters Treaty, which governs water critical to Pakistan for consumption and agriculture.
“India’s water used to go outside, now it will flow for India,” Modi said in a speech in New Delhi.