Pakistan’s defence minister Khawaja Asif said that it was still “premature” to give any statements on de-escalation, the Guardian’s south Asia correspondent Hannah Ellis-Peterson reports. “Things are in pipeline and contacts have been established.” Asif said. “There is no conclusive statement to be given yet. But I can confirm that the US and Saudi Arabia are playing a crucial role as interlocutors. Secretary of state made a call today to Pakistan’s military chief and the Saudi state minister for foreign minister is in the town.” He added: “We can’t trust Indians for talks and de-escalation. If interlocutors and our common friends and credible countries such as Saudi Arabia and the US step in and play a crucial role, we have no issue to de-escalate. We did not start it. We just responded to the Indian military aggression.” The UK foreign secretary, David Lammy has joined G7 ministers in calling for an “immediate de-escalation” between India and Pakistan, PA reports. A statement said: “We, the G7 foreign ministers of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States of America and the high representative of the European Union, strongly condemn the egregious terrorist attack in Pahalgam on April 22 and urge maximum restraint from both India and Pakistan. “Further military escalation poses a serious threat to regional stability. We are deeply concerned for the safety of civilians on both sides. “We call for immediate de-escalation and encourage both countries to engage in direct dialogue towards a peaceful outcome. We continue to monitor events closely and express our support for a swift and lasting diplomatic resolution.” Indian prime minister Narendra Modi is holding a meeting with top security officials at his residence following the escalation in tensions with Pakistan, AP reports. Defense minister Rajnath Singh, national security advisor Ajit Doval and the chiefs of the army, navy and air force are present. Modi’s office released a video of the meeting in which he is seen talking to the officials. Are we heading for another world war – or has it already started? Patrick Wintour, the Guardian’s diplomatic editor, argues that the implosion of Pax Americana, the interconnectedness of conflicts, the new willingness to resort to unbridled state-sponsored violence and the irrelevance of the institutions of the rules-based order have all been on brutal display this week as conflict between India and Pakistan intensified. In Kashmir, where two nuclear-armed states are firing rockets at one another’s aircraft, there is a conspicuous absence of American interest. The US has no ambassador in India or Pakistan and no senior state department official appointed. The conflict is not making waves in US media, and Trump’s initial response was “it’s a shame” and that “if you think about it they have been fighting for many, many decades, and centuries, actually”. In previous disputes between India and Pakistan it took a decisive US intervention to help calm both sides. In July 1999 in Washington, Bill Clinton personally browbeat Pakistan’s then leader, Nawaz Sharif, into retreat in what one official called the most important meeting with a foreign leader of Clinton’s presidency. The former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo revealed in his memoir how close the two sides came in February 2019 to a nuclear conflagration, something he frantically helped stop from a secure hotel room on a visit to Hanoi. Unnervingly, India is no longer framing the issue as terrorism but as a state-on-state dispute by saying the underlying issue is Pakistan acting as a shield for terrorism. China has said it is “deeply concerned about the escalation” of tensions between India and Pakistan and is willing to “continue to play a constructive role” in finding a solution, AP reports. China’s foreign ministry said: “We strongly urge both sides to act in the larger interest of peace and stability, exercise calm and restraint, return to the track of political settlement through peaceful means, and refrain from any action that could further escalate tension.” China is a strong ally of Pakistan, especially in the defence sector where they have jointly developed fighter aircraft. AP has reported from Srinagar, the main city in Indian-controlled Kashmir, which was rattled by multiple loud explosions earlier today. Most shops and businesses were open, but traffic was thin on the roads. Government forces, wearing body armour and carrying automatic rifles, erected additional checkpoints on the main road leading to the city’s airport, a part of which also serves as an Indian air force station. Many residents living close to the airport fled from their neighborhoods in fear of attacks. The Indian military said it was among three air bases that came under Pakistani attack early Saturday. Local resident Munir Ahmed along with his family fled from their home as they didn’t feel safe, he said. “We did not want to take any chances as my daughter is in her late pregnancy,” Ahmed said. Authorities have already closed schools and other educational institutions across the region until Tuesday. Most shops and businesses were shut in the region’s Jammu city, which witnessed Pakistan’s Saturday strike and drone attacks for the past two nights. Anxious residents said police drove through some neighborhoods and asked shopkeepers to close businesses and stay indoors as a precautionary measure. At least 13 civilians were killed in Pakistani Kashmir in the 12 hours to noon on Saturday, the region’s disaster authority said, as India and Pakistan traded fire after Islamabad’s military action against India in the early hours of the day. It is currently just past 2pm in Kashmir. More than 50 people were also injured in the region, the authority said. India has shut more airports along its northern and western regions following the flare up in tensions with Pakistan, AP reports. The India’s Civil Aviation Ministry in a statement said the operation of civil flights will remain suspended from 32 airports until 15 May. It had previously announced flights from two dozen airports would be suspended. The latest airports to be shut are mainly located in the northern states of Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir, and the western state of Gujarat, bordering Pakistan. India and Pakistan have accused each other of cross-border missile strikes against major military targets, the most significant escalation so far in the brewing conflict between the two nuclear-armed neighbours. On Saturday, India accused Pakistan of launching strikes on dozens of airbases and military headquarters across north India, using long-range weapons, drones and fighter aircraft. The accusations came a few hours after Pakistan said India had fired six surface-to-air missiles targeting three of Pakistan’s most important military bases early on Saturday morning. Shortly afterwards, Pakistan officials confirmed they had begun their counter-attack against India, under the name Operation Bunyan Ul Marsoos, a phrase from the Qur’an roughly translating to “wall of lead”. Read the Guardian’s latest report on the intensifying cross-border conflict between India and Pakistan at the link below. Pakistan’s prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif told the country’s political leaders in separate calls that “we have given India a befitting response and avenged the blood of our innocent citizens” following what he said were repeated Indian strikes on civilians, AP reports. India has denied hitting civilian targets. In a statement, his office said Sharif said Pakistan had shown “extreme restraint” in the face of Indian provocations. He said Pakistan responded after India’s overnight missile attacks at air bases and other places. Pakistan’s retaliatory military operation against India, under the name Operation Bunyan Ul Marsoos, translating from the Arabic as “wall of lead”, targeted multiple bases including a missile storage site in northern India. Pakistan’s foreign ministry quoted Saudi Arabia’s top diplomat, Prince Faisal bin Farhan, as saying he “appreciated Pakistan’s measured and restrained response” to India in a phone call to his counterpart. In a statement, Pakistan’s foreign ministry said Ishaq Dar informed Farhan about the situation in the region following last night’s Indian attacks and Pakistan’s subsequent response. “Both leaders agreed to maintain close contact,” it said. Saudi Arabia has in recent years tried to position itself as a mediator in conflicts including the wars in Ukraine and Gaza. Two loud blasts were heard in Indian’s Kashmir’s summer capital of Srinagar on Saturday, near the city airport and the local headquarters of the army, according to an official, a Reuters witness, and local residents. Two blasts were also heard in Kashmir’s Baramulla town, an official and residents told Reuters, as fighting continued between nuclear-armed neighbours India and Pakistan. Pakistan’s defence minister has played down the likelihood of nuclear weapons being used. He earlier denied that the main body in charge of command and control of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons, the National Command Authority, had no plans to meet after reports that it had convened a meeting. Defence minister Khawaja Asif told ARY TV: “This thing that you have spoken about (nuclear option) is present, but let’s not talk about it - we should treat it as a very distant possibility, we shouldn’t even discuss it in the immediate context.” “Before we get to that point, I think temperatures will come down. No meeting has happened of the National Command Authority, nor is any such meeting scheduled.” If you’re just joining us, here’s a recap of where things stand after Pakistan said it carried out retaliatory strikes in response to India targeting its military bases with missiles in a sharp escalation of the conflict between the two nuclear-armed neighbours. The Pakistani military said India fired six missiles targeting Nur Khan, Murid and Shorkot – three of Pakistan’s most important military bases – early on Saturday morning. It said most were intercepted by Pakistani air defences. Pakistan later launched a retaliatory military operation against India, its military said, under the name Operation Bunyan Ul Marsoos, translating from the Arabic as “wall of lead”. It targeted multiple bases including a missile storage site in northern India. Pakistan military officials said the Pathankot military airfield in Punjab and Udhampur air force base in Indian-administered Kashmir were among the targets, with loud explosions heard from both. Among India’s targets was Nur Khan air base in Rawalpindi, where the Pakistani military has its headquarters, which is about 10km from Islamabad. The strikes caused panic in the densely populated area. Pakistan later shut its air space for 24 hours. India’s strikes and Pakistan’s counterattack brings the two countries the closest they have been to war in decades. But India and Pakistan both said on Saturday they would not escalate hostilities if the other reciprocated. US secretary of state Marco Rubio urged both countries’ foreign ministers to find ways to “de-escalate and re-establish direct communication to avoid miscalculation”. The G7 called for “maximum restraint”, saying “further military escalation poses a serious threat to regional stability”. The two countries have engaged in daily clashes since Wednesday, when India launched strikes inside Pakistan on what it called militant bases. At least 48 people have been killed since Wednesday, according to casualty estimates on both sides of the border that have not been independently verified. The flare-up comes after an attack on Hindu tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir last month, killing 26 civilians. India has accused Pakistan of supporting militants behind the attack. India’s military said on Saturday it had begun large-scale mobilisation of additional forces to the border, including activating its reserve territorial army, in case the conflict escalated further. More here on the US secretary of state’s calls to top Indian and Pakistani diplomats amid the flaring conflict – just days after US vice-president JD Vance was reported as saying the US would not intervene and the fighting between the two countries was “fundamentally none of our business”. Marco Rubio urged India and Pakistan to restore direct communication to “avoid miscalculation” in a series of calls, the state department said early on Saturday. Rubio placed telephone calls to the rivals’ foreign ministers and, for the first known time since the conflict erupted, also spoke with Pakistan’s army chief, Col Asim Munir. considered the country’s key powerbroker, Agence France-Presse reports. In the separate calls with the top diplomats, Rubio “emphasised that both sides need to identify methods to de-escalate and re-establish direct communication to avoid miscalculation”, state department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce said. In the conversations with both foreign ministers and Asim Munir, Rubio also “offered US assistance in starting constructive talks in order to avoid future conflicts”, Bruce said. The stepped-up diplomacy came as the conflict intensified between the nuclear-armed neighbours, with Pakistan launching counterattacks after India struck three of its air bases, according to officials. Pakistan’s aviation authority says its airspace is to remain closed for the next 24 hours, AFP just reported. Pakistan’s foreign minister has told local television that if India stops here then “we will consider to stop here”, Reuters is reporting. Ishaq Dar also said he had told the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, that the ball was in India’s court when it came to de-escalation. Rubio said both parties had to find ways to de-escalate and re-establish direct communication to avoid miscalculation, the US state department said. The Indian military, meanwhile, reiterated a commitment not to escalate the conflict provided that was reciprocated by the Pakistani military. India said limited damaged was sustained to equipment and personnel at some Indian military bases that were hit. It also said the claim that its missiles had struck Afghanistan were false. Pakistan is increasing its deployment of troops along the border, the Indian military said on Saturday. The Pakistani army has been observed to be moving its troops into forward areas, “indicating offensive intent to further escalate the situation”, an Indian military spokesperson told the media briefing in New Delhi. “Indian armed forces remain in a high state of operational readiness,” Reuters quoted her as saying. Indian armed forces reiterate their commitment to non-escalation, provided it is reciprocated by the Pakistan military. The Indian military has said at a media conference it targeted Pakistani military bases after Islamabad fired several high-speed missiles at multiple Indian air bases in the country’s Punjab state early on Saturday. Indian colonel Sofiya Qureshi said in New Delhi just now that Pakistan also targeted health facilities and schools at its three air bases in Indian-controlled Kashmir. “Befitting reply has been given to Pakistani actions,” she said. The Pakistani army’s actions were “provocation” and India’s response was “measured”, said foreign secretary Vikram Misri, cited by the Associated Press. Pakistan’s defence minister, Khawaja Asif, has told ARY TV that no meeting of the National Command Authority is scheduled. It was reported earlier that Pakistan’s prime minister had convened a meeting of the authority, the main body that makes decisions on the control, command and operations of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons. Asif also said the United States was the one country that could play an effective role between Pakistan and India. India’s military claims Pakistan has targeted medical and educational facilities in Indian-administered Kashmir as well as using a missile to target an airbase in Punjab. It also said Pakistan attempted air intrusions in 26 locations, Reuters reports. The Indian military said it responded by targeting radar systems and technical bases in Pakistan. More on Beijing’s call for India and Pakistan to avoid escalating their conflict: a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said in a statement cited by AFP: We strongly call on both India and Pakistan to give priority to peace and stability, remain calm and restrained, return to the track of political settlement through peaceful means and avoid taking actions that further escalate tensions. The latest India-Pakistan fighting was triggered by an attack on the Indian-run side of Kashmir that killed 26 tourists and which Delhi blamed on Pakistan, also accusing the Lashkar-e-Taiba group of involvement. But what exactly is Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and what is its relationship with Islamabad? Peter Beaumont describes in this explainer how it is a long-established Islamic salafist militant group founded in Pakistan and designated as a terrorist group by many countries. Its 2008 attack on Mumbai killed 166 people, including a number of foreign nationals. The UN security council says LeT has conducted “numerous terrorist operations” against military and civilian targets since 1993, including attacks on Mumbai commuter trains in July 2006 and a December 2001 attack on India’s parliament. The group has focused much of its militant activity in the disputed Himalayan territory of Kashmir, largely because of its proximity to India, but LeT has a broader hostility to India. The full explainer is here: China has “strongly” urged India and Pakistan to avoid escalating their conflict, AFP is reporting. Residents have been taking shelter amid artillery shelling overnight in Poonch district, in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir. Five people have been killed in Pakistani attacks in India’s Jammu region on Saturday morning, according to police in India-administered Kashmir, cited by Reuters. The Indian army said on Saturday that Pakistan was continuing its “blatant escalation” with drone strikes and using other munitions along India’s western border, and its “enemy designs” would be thwarted, according to a report from Reuters. Multiple “enemy armed drones” spotted over the holy city of Amritsar in India’s border state of Punjab were “instantly engaged and destroyed” by Indian air defence units, the army said in a post on X. Here are some of the latest images coming in from the region over the news wires. The US secretary of state has urged India and Pakistan to find ways to de-escalate their conflict, the state department said. Marco Rubio spoke earlier on Saturday with Pakistan’s army chief, Gen Asim Munir, it also said. Reuters reports that Rubio offered US assistance to start constructive talks to avoid future conflicts, according to the state department. Pakistan’s prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, has convened a crucial meeting of the National Command Authority amid the escalating conflict with India. The authority is the main body that makes decisions on the control, command and operations of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons. Usually a meeting of the authority is convened only in a war-like situation to discuss nuclear matters. Pakistan’s planning and development minister, Ahsan Iqbal, told Reuters: “We would hate to see the nuclear threshold being breached.” Here’s a recap from Kate Lamb of what we know about the latest key developments in the intensifying India-Pakistan conflict. Pakistan launched a retaliatory military operation against India early on Saturday, its military said, targeting multiple bases including a missile storage site in northern India as the nuclear-armed neighbours extended their worst fighting in nearly three decades. Pakistan military officials told state-run media the Pathankot military airfield in Punjab and Udhampur air force base in Indian-administered Kashmir were among the targets, with loud explosions heard from both. Officials said the operation was called Operation Bunyan Ul Marsoos, an Arabic phrase meaning “wall of lead”. Pakistan’s offensive came shortly after it said India had fired missiles from fighter jets at three air bases earlier on Saturday, including one close to the capital, Islamabad. Pakistani said its air defences had intercepted most of them. Among the targets was Nur Khan air base in Rawalpindi, where the Pakistani military has its headquarters, which is around 10km from Islamabad. The strikes caused panic in the densely populated area, with loud explosions sending residents running into the streets. In the aftermath of the strikes, Pakistan shut down its air space. Following Saturday’s strikes, Pakistan prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, called a meeting of the National Command Authority, the military said. The authority is the top body of civilian and military officials that takes security decisions including those related to the country’s nuclear arsenal. India’s attempted strikes on Rawalpindi and other key military bases – and the launch of Pakistan’s counter-attack on Saturday – marks the steepest escalation in their confrontation yet, bringing the two countries the closest they have been to war in decades. Locked in a longstanding dispute over Kashmir, the two countries have engaged in daily clashes since Wednesday, when India launched strikes inside Pakistan on what it called militant bases. At least 48 people have been killed since Wednesday, according to casualty estimates on both sides of the border that have not been independently verified. The dramatic flare up comes after a deadly attack on Hindu tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir last month, when 26 civilians were killed. India has accused Pakistan of supporting militants behind the attack. India’s defence and foreign ministries did not immediately comment on the strikes, but India’s military said it had actively begun large-scale mobilisation of additional forces to the border, including activating its reserve territorial army (TA), to ensure full operational strength of the army in the event of any further conflict escalation. The G7 has called for an “immediate de-escalation” and “maximum restraint” between India and Pakistan amid the flaring conflict. “Further military escalation poses a serious threat to regional stability,” G7 foreign ministers said in a statement on Saturday. Pakistan’s foreign minister has said the country has all options available. Ishaq Dar, who is also deputy prime minister, told Geo News the world was watching and Pakistan had given the response. India had left Pakistan with no choice, Dar said. The international community and friendly countries knew that Islamabad had taken this decision as a last resort. Dar said: In the earlier Indian attacks, our 35 civilians were killed. Hours ago, India had attacked our air force bases. We had done everything on a defensive mode and we were forced to retaliate. It is the responsibility of the international community to play their role and they should have played their role when India had attacked Pakistan days ago and killed civilians. We showed so much restraint. Looking now at India and Pakistan’s military might along the contested border, the Indian army is about double the size of Pakistan’s but the two sides are “fairly evenly balanced”, says Sushant Singh, an author and political science lecturer at Yale who spent two decades in the Indian army. There are about 1.2 million active Indian personnel compared with about 650,000 for Pakistan, Hannah Ellis-Petersen and Shah Meer Baloch report. Their dispatch continues: Singh emphasised that, since 2020, India had deployed huge amounts of military personnel and resources towards its mountainous border with China, after the India-China border crisis swiftly escalated. India has also had issues with the modernisation of its armed forces and faced a systematic recruitment problem, leading to a shortfall of soldiers. “Despite its size, India doesn’t have the kind of dominance where you would expect India to easily ride roughshod over Pakistan or declare a quick win,” said Singh. The question of who would have the edge in any confrontation is also a question of equipment. In recent years, India has been shifting away from its reliance on Russian weapons to buying western munitions, including elite French Rafale jet planes and F-16 jets from the US. Pakistan now buys 80% of its military arsenal from China. According to reports, as tensions with India rose last month, China rushed 100 more of its powerful new PL-15 missiles to Pakistan, which it usually keeps for its own inventory and does not export. On Friday, the Pakistan army claimed it used the PL-15 missiles to bring down several Indian jets during Wednesday’s strikes. Shuja Nawaz, the author of Crossed Swords and a known expert on Pakistan’s military, said this showed that “China is not only helping Pakistan, but it is using it as a kind of testing ground for its weaponry against India”. For more context on today’s sharp escalation of the India-Pakistan conflict, the fighting comes two weeks after New Delhi blamed Islamabad for backing an attack on the Indian-run side of disputed Kashmir that killed 26 tourists, mostly Hindu men. India blamed the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba – a UN-designated terrorist organisation – for the attack but Pakistan has denied any involvement and called for an independent inquiry, reports Agence France-Presse. The countries have fought several wars over the Muslim-majority Kashmir, which both claim in full but administer separate portions of since gaining independence from British rule in 1947. Previous clashes have been mostly limited to the Kashmir region – separated by a heavily militarised border known as the line of control – but this time India has struck multiple cities deep in Pakistan. Pakistan’s foreign ministry alleged New Delhi’s “reckless conduct has brought the two nuclear-armed states closer to a major conflict”. India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, met top security officials on Friday, including his national security advisor, defence minister and the chiefs of the armed forces, his office said. The Indian military says it has actively begun large-scale mobilisation of additional forces to the border, including activating its reserve territorial army (TA), to ensure full operational strength of the army in the event of any further conflict escalation. In a notification on Friday amid the escalating tensions between India and Pakistan, the Indian ministry of defence announced the activation of 14 of 32 infantry battalions of the TA for deployment across the country until February 2028. Each TA battalion has about 750 personnel. The Pakistani military has posted a video on X of its first military strike against India that was launched before dawn after Indian missile attacks on Pakistan’s three air force bases. A senior security source requesting anonymity said Pakistan was left with no choice to take retaliatory actions after it was forced by Indian military aggression but that the early morning attacks on the Pakistani air bases were unprecedented. The security official said: Indian missile attacks were a very serious escalation. It is unprecedented. We have not seen such escalation since the 1971 war with India. We have been defensive since the start of the conflict, but India now wants to become offensive. We have given our response. Who is Asim Munir, the army chief leading Pakistan’s military amid the crisis with India? The general once fell foul of Imran Khan, but since taking the top spot has been quietly amassing power over the government and supreme court, as our profile here says. Hannah Ellis-Petersen and Shah Meer Baloch report that in the 77 years since Pakistan was established, its affairs and politics have long been governed by the whims of powerful military generals. Yet even now that the country is out of the clutches of martial law, it is still widely understood that the most powerful man in Pakistan is not the head of the government but instead the chief of the army. Since Gen Munir took over as Pakistan’s army chief more than two years ago, he has been accused of quietly consolidating greater power without even having to topple the country’s civilian rulers. As he kept himself largely out of the limelight, he consolidated an iron grip over the army’s ranks and bent government policy and even the supreme court to his will. You can read more on Munir here: More here on the G7 urging an “immediate de-escalation” and “maximum restraint” between India and Pakistan amid the flaring conflict between the nuclear-armed neighbours. “Further military escalation poses a serious threat to regional stability,” the foreign ministers of the Group of Seven wealthy democracies said in a statement, cited by Agence France-Presse. The G7 – which includes Japan, Canada and Italy as well as the US, the UK, Germany and France – added that both sides should “engage in direct dialogue towards a peaceful outcome”. Here are some of the latest images coming in from Pakistan, showing police removing vehicles and people from the main entry of Nur Khan airbase after the Indian missile strike in Rawalpindi on Saturday. Pakistan officials have confirmed its counterattack against India has started under the name Operation Bunyan Ul Marsoos, meaning “wall of lead” in Arabic. As our newly updated full report says, Pakistan’s retaliatory strikes – after accusing India of targeting three of its military bases – are a major escalation of the brewing conflict between the two nuclear-armed neighbours. Pakistan’s military spokesperson said in a live broadcast on state television early on Saturday that India had targeted Nur Khan base, Murid base and Shorkot base. Shah Meer Baloch and Hannah Ellis-Petersen report that Nur Khan air base in Rawalpindi, where the military has its headquarters, is about 10km from the Pakistani capital, Islamabad. Video shared on social media showed flames and smoke billowing into the night sky. The early morning strikes on Nur Khan in Rawalpindi, a densely populated area, caused mass panic, with residents running into the streets. India’s attempted strikes on Rawalpindi and other key military bases – and the launch of Pakistan’s counterattack on Saturday – marks the steepest escalation in their confrontation yet, bringing the two countries the closest they have been to war in decades. See the full report here: Pakistan has shut its airspace to all air traffic, India’s NDTV is reporting. Pakistan’s military says it has hit India’s Pathankot air field, Udhampur air force station and Brahmos missile site, Reuters reports. State-run Pakistan Television says “multiple locations” in India are being targeted in Pakistan’s retaliatory attacks. It did not give details and it was unclear which military locations in India were being targeted. The report from the Associated Press comes after Pakistan’s army said earlier that India had fired missiles at three air bases in the country. Most had been intercepted, it said. Pakistan has launched retaliatory military action against India, the Pakistani state broadcaster has said, citing security sources. Multiple explosions have been heard in the Indian cities of Amritsar and Jammu, according to Reuters witnesses, and in the north-western Pakistani city of Peshawar. G7 countries have called for an immediate de-escalation between India and Pakistan and encouraged them to engage in direct dialogue towards a peaceful outcome, Reuters is reporting. The Group of Seven includes the US, UK, France and Germany. Hello and welcome to our coverage of the India-Pakistan crisis. Pakistan’s army spokesman says India has fired missiles at three air bases inside the country, but most of the missiles have been intercepted. Lt Gen Ahmad Sharif said all Pakistan air force assets were safe. He made this announcement during his televised address, saying some of the Indian missiles had also hit India’s eastern Punjab. The news comes after Pakistan was accused of launching a fresh wave of drone strikes against India, with projectiles reported over the states of Indian-administered Kashmir and Punjab. The allegations were yet another alarming confrontation between India and Pakistan, two nuclear-armed countries, since India’s missile strikes on nine sites in Pakistan on Wednesday killed 31 people. Those strikes in turn were India’s response to an attack in Indian-administered Kashmir late last month, in which militants killed 25 Hindu tourists and a guide. Follow the developments with us.
Author: Hayden Vernon (now) and Adam Fulton (earlier)