India launches military strikes on Pakistan

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India has launched air strikes against nine sites in Pakistan, bringing the two nuclear-armed neighbours into open military conflict over last month’s deadly militant attack on tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir.

India said it had carried out “precision strikes” on “terrorist infrastructure” in what appeared to be the most extensive military attack on its neighbour in decades.

While India’s defence ministry did not specify the locations of the strikes, it said it was “hitting terrorist infrastructure” in Pakistan and the part of the disputed region of Kashmir that Pakistan administers. Both countries claim Kashmir and each controls part of the region.

The ministry added that “no Pakistani military facilities have been targeted” in its first strike on its neighbour since 2019 and said India’s attacks were “focused, measured and non-escalatory in nature”. 

ANI, an Indian news agency close to the country’s government, said Prime Minister Narendra Modi had been constantly monitoring the operation through the night, and that the strikes on the nine targets had been “successful”. 

Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif termed India’s strikes an “act of war” and said on the X social media platform that his country had “every right to respond forcefully . . . and a strong response is indeed being given”. 

Pakistan’s military spokesman said that India had launched 24 strikes at six areas across the country. At least eight people, including five civilians, had been killed and 35 people had been injured, he said, adding that two children aged three and 16 were among the dead.

Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, the spokesman, also told Reuters on Wednesday morning that Pakistan downed five Indian fighter jets, including three French-made Rafales, one Russian-made SU-30 and a Russian-made MiG-29. State broadcaster PTV reported that Pakistani artillery was firing towards Indian-administered Kashmir. 

The conflict between the two neighbours came to a boil last month after gunmen killed 25 Indians and a Nepali citizen in Pahalgam, a tourist spot in Indian-administered Kashmir. Modi responded by vowing to “find, track and punish every terrorist” responsible for the attack, which shocked and angered Indians. 

Police in Kashmir have said they were seeking three men, including two Pakistani citizens, in connection with the attack, and linked them to Lashkar-e-Taiba, the group responsible for the Mumbai terror attacks of 2008. Pakistan has denied any involvement in the attack in Kashmir and has called for an independent investigation. 

In response to the Pahalgam attack, India suspended a key treaty under which it shares water with Pakistan in the Indus river basin, and the two countries sharply downgraded their relations, closing airspace and ports, suspending trade and shutting their land border. 

India has called Wednesday’s attack on Pakistan “Operation Sindoor”, a reference to the red mark Hindu women wear in their hair parting, the traditional Hindu symbol of marriage. A picture of a honeymooning couple attacked in Pahalgam, with the wife kneeling by the body of her husband, was widely shared in India after the attack. 

Indians were bracing themselves for a likely Pakistani military response. On Tuesday, before the overnight strikes, India’s home ministry ordered a nationwide mock drill for emergency preparedness and civil defence. 

Sharif, Pakistan’s leader, has called a national security committee meeting for Wednesday morning. Pakistan has closed its airspace and shut schools in the part of Kashmir it administers, in the capital Islamabad, and throughout Punjab, a province of more than 120mn people.

“There will be retaliation of some kind by Pakistan in the coming hours,” said C Raja Mohan, an Indian international affairs analyst. “In the meantime, there is diplomacy going on behind the scenes and the US will be involved at some level.” 

Washington, which has close ties with both India and Pakistan, has urged restraint. US President Donald Trump called the strikes “a shame” and said he hoped the conflict “ends very soon”.