Good morning. Shortly after midnight local time, India said it had conducted strikes on nine sites in Pakistan, reportedly killing at least 26 people, in response to a recent militant attack on tourists in Indian Kashmir. Delhi claimed that it had hit sites of “terrorist infrastructure”, and said that its action was “focused, measured, and non-escalatory”. But Islamabad’s response suggests that its analysis is dangerously different.
The strikes constituted the largest such Indian attack on Pakistan in more than half a century, and marked the worst confrontation between the two nuclear-armed powers since 2019. Pakistan responded with shelling of Indian Kashmir, and there were claims – not corroborated, and to be treated with caution – that it has shot down five Indian jets. The country’s military also claimed that a hydropower plant had been hit. Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said that his country “has every right to give a befitting reply to this act of war”.
