Pakistan signals potential retaliation after India's air strike

Pakistan said it reserves the right to retaliate after India launched targeted strikes, signaling a potential further escalation in hostilities between the nuclear-armed rivals following last month’s deadly Kashmir attacks.

Just hours after India hit nine targets in its neighbor, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s office said in a statement that the country “reserves the right to respond, in self-defense, at a time, place, and manner of its choosing.”

“The Armed Forces of Pakistan have duly been authorized to undertake corresponding actions,” the statement, issued after the National Security Committee meeting, added.

Islamabad’s response is likely to intensify tensions in the region that is already unsettled by the April 22 militant attacks in India’s Jammu and Kashmir, which left 26 civilians dead.

India said in a statement early Wednesday that it conducted “a precise and restrained response” that was “designed to be non-escalatory in nature.” The strikes were the deepest breach of Pakistani territory since the 1971 war.

New Delhi said it only targeted “known terror camps” and hit no Pakistani civilian, economic or military targets. Pakistan’s army said 26 civilians were killed in the strikes by India. Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs called the move an “act of war.”

For now, there is little clarity on how Pakistan will respond. The last time the two sides came close to an all-out war was in 2019, after a suicide bomber killed 40 members of India’s security forces. India blamed Pakistan and responded about two weeks later with its first airstrikes on Pakistani soil since 1971. Pakistan retaliated by shooting down an Indian jet and arresting the pilot, who was later released. Tensions died down soon afterward.

Pakistan’s army said Wednesday it shot down Indian jets — including three Rafales, a MiG-29, and an SU-30 — following the strike. At a New Delhi briefing, Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri detailed the April militant attack and investigation but did not address Pakistan’s claim.

India struck Pakistan beyond the disputed Kashmir territory, hitting seven locations — Bahawalpur, Muridke, Tehra Kalan, Sialkot, Bhimber, Kotli, Muzaffarabad — according to government officials from both countries.

The action so far mirrors previous incidents, indicating a reluctance by the two sides to escalate the conflict, Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan, resident senior fellow at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

“Things can go out of control, spin out of control,” she said. “That’s something that the political leadership on both sides are mindful of. But if you look at their repeated conflicts over the last three decades since both countries went nuclear in 1998, both sides have shown restraint.”

Indian stocks closed slightly higher after swinging between gains and losses during the day. The rupee weakened 0.5% against the dollar and yields on the benchmark bond fell. Stocks pared decline in Pakistan.

The Indian National Congress, the country’s main opposition party, backed the military action, but refrained from calling for more strikes.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he is closely monitoring the rising tensions, while the U.S. President Donald Trump, speaking in the Oval Office, called the situation “a shame.”

“They’ve been fighting for a long time,” Trump said. “I just hope it ends very quickly.”

The Indian Army on Wednesday said it engaged in cross-border firing with Pakistan’s forces, using heavy caliber weapons. At least three Indian civilians have been killed so far in the firing, it added.

Ties between the nuclear-armed South Asian rivals have rapidly deteriorated in the wake of the Kashmir attack, which India has called an act of terrorism. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government had accused Pakistan of involvement and vowed to punish those responsible. Pakistan has denied any links to the attacks.

India called its military strike “Operation Sindoor,” a reference to the sacred vermillion powder married Hindu women wear along their hairline. Survivors in the April 22 attack said that men were shot while their wives and children watched.

Tensions had also escalated following the Kashmir attack after India suspended a long-standing Indus Waters Treaty, with Pakistan saying earlier in the day that India has almost entirely stopped the flow of water across the border through the Chenab river, which is crucial for farm irrigation.

India and Pakistan are two of the world’s most acrimonious neighbors, and the long-running tensions between them center on the border region of Kashmir, an area in the Himalayas claimed in full — and ruled in part — by both. New Delhi, for decades, has been frustrated by what it sees as the Pakistan military’s support for terror groups that strike inside its territory.

Skirmishes in the border areas have continued in the past few days and both nations took steps to show their operational readiness. Pakistan conducted surface-to-surface missile tests this week, highlighting its military might and India ordered mock drills across several states to ensure preparedness amid the standoff.

Since achieving independence from Britain in 1947, India and Pakistan have fought several times over the disputed Himalayan region. The most recent prolonged fighting occurred in 1999, when Pakistani troops infiltrated Kargil, an Indian-controlled district in Kashmir. That lasted for several months until Pakistani forces withdrew from locations on the Line of Control, the de facto border.

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—With assistance from Khalid Qayum, Ruchi Bhatia, Jon Herskovitz, Chiranjivi Chakraborty, Subhadip Sircar, Ben Westcott, Jeanette Rodrigues, Preeti Soni, Yasufumi Saito, Eltaf Najafizada, Swati Gupta, Naman Tandon, Shery Ahn, Paul Allen, Justin Sink, Shruti Srivastava, Anup Roy, Faseeh Mangi, Debjit Chakraborty, Diksha Madhok and Vrishti Beniwal.

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