Pakistan on Saturday launched counterattacks against India after three of its air bases were struck overnight, as the conflict between the nuclear-armed neighbours spiralled toward full-blown war.
The South Asian countries have exchanged fire since Wednesday, when India carried out air strikes on sites in Pakistani territory over a deadly attack on tourists on the Indian side of the divided Kashmir region.
The clashes — which have involved missiles, drones, and exchanges of fire along the de facto border in disputed Kashmir — are the worst in decades and have killed more than 50 civilians.
World leaders including the G7 group of industrialised nations have called for restraint, and the United States on Saturday offered help to get both sides talking as the violence intensified.
The Indian army on Saturday reported fresh Pakistani attacks along their shared border.
“Pakistan’s blatant escalation with drone strikes and other munitions continues along our western border,” the army said on X.
AFP journalists reported loud explosions in Srinagar, the capital of India-administered Kashmir.
The army said “multiple enemy drones were spotted flying over” a military cantonment in Amritsar in Punjab, a state adjoining Kashmir, and were “instantly engaged and destroyed by our air defence units.”
Hours ahead of Pakistan’s latest operation, the country’s military spokesman, Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, had accused India of having “attacked with missiles” targeting three air bases.
In the live broadcast aired by state television in the middle of the night, he said a “majority of the missiles” had been intercepted and “no flying assets” had been damaged.
One of the bases targeted, Nur Khan air base in Rawalpindi, the garrison city where the army is headquartered, is around 10 kilometres (6 miles) from the capital Islamabad.
Armed groups have stepped up operations in Kashmir since 2019, when Modi’s Hindu nationalist government revoked its limited autonomy and took the state under direct rule by New Delhi.
The conflict has caused major disruptions to international aviation, with airlines having to cancel flights or use longer routes that do not overfly the India-Pakistan frontier.
India has closed 24 airports, while schools in areas close to the border on both sides were shuttered, affecting millions of children.
The mega Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket tournament was on Friday suspended for a week, while Pakistan suspended its own T20 franchise competition indefinitely.
