Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif vowed to retaliate after India launched deadly missile strikes on Wednesday morning, with days of repeated gunfire along their border escalating into artillery shelling.
India said it had destroyed nine “terrorist camps” in Pakistan in “focused, measured and non-escalatory” strikes, two weeks after New Delhi blamed Islamabad for backing an attack on tourists in the Indian-administered side of disputed Kashmir -- a charge Pakistan denies.
Islamabad said 31 civilians were killed by Indian strikes and firing along the border.
Pakistan's military also said five Indian jets had been downed across the border, but New Delhi has not responded to the claims.
'Screamed'
Madasar Choudhary, 29, described how his sister saw two children killed in Poonch, on the Indian side of the frontier on Wednesday.
“But shrapnel got to the children -- and they eventually died.”
“There is no place to live,“ he said. “There is no space at the house of our relatives. We are very upset, we have nowhere to go.”
India's army on Thursday morning reported firing “small arms and artillery guns” in multiple sites overnight, adding that its soldiers had “responded proportionately”, without giving further details.
Muslim-majority Kashmir -- claimed by both India and Pakistan -- has been a repeated flashpoint.
India's Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said the operation was New Delhi’s “right to respond” following an attack on tourists in Pahalgam in Kashmir last month, when gunmen killed 26 people, mainly Hindu men.
India on Thursday braced for Pakistan's threatened retaliation.
In an editorial, the Indian Express wrote “there is no reason to believe that the Pakistan Army has been chastened by the Indian airstrikes”, adding that Indian military experts were “aware that Pakistan's armed forces are no pushover”.
“I want to see them stop,“ US President Donald Trump said Wednesday.
Analysts said they were fully expecting Pakistani military action to “save face” in a response to India.
“Pakistan has a limited objective of ensuring that it carries out a retaliatory strike to save face domestically and internationally. So, that is likely to happen.”
Based on past conflicts, he believed it would “likely end in a few iterations of exchange of long-range gunfire or missiles into each other’s territory”.
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