Nuclear-armed India and Pakistan just reignited their long-simmering conflict. On Wednesday, Indian airstrikes reportedly killed more than two dozen people and injured at least 46 others across nine alleged terrorist sites across Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir.
Pakistan called the strikes “an unprovoked and blatant act of war,” and responded with shelling believed to have killed at least 10 civilians and wounded 48 others in the Jammu and Kashmir regions.
A Pakistani military spokesman also claimed to have shot down five Indian aircraft, including three French-made Rafales, one Su-30MKI and one MiG-29 Fulcrum. “There was no immediate comment from India, but three planes fell onto villages in India-controlled territory, according to police and residents,” the Associated Press reports.
Flashpoint: India’s airstrikes came in response to a militant attack on April 22 that killed 26 people at a popular tourist resort in Pahalgam, inside Indian-administered Kashmir. India blamed Lashkar-e-Taiba militants inside Pakistan for the attack; Pakistan denied involvement.
The two nations briefly skirmished six years ago. But “Wednesday’s aerial assault was on a far bigger scale than in 2019, when India struck a single, remote Pakistani site in response to a similar militant attack in Kashmir,” the Washington Post reports. Top U.S. diplomats rushed to help de-escalate that situation.
U.S. President Trump: “I just heard about it. I guess people knew something was going to happen, based on a little bit of the past. They’ve been fighting for a long time. You know, they’ve been fighting for many, many decades—and centuries, actually, if you really think about it. No, I just hope it ends very quickly.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is also acting national security advisor, said on X that he is monitoring the situation.
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