India Confirms Strikes On 9 Pakistan’s “Terrorist Camps”; Pakistan Claims 5 Jets Shot-Down

Update (1945ET): India confirmed early Wednesday that it had conducted strikes on Pakistan, two weeks after more than two dozen civilians were killed in a terrorist attack in Indian-administered Kashmir.

This article was originally published by ZeroHedge.

India said it had struck Pakistan after gathering evidence “pointing towards the clear involvement of Pakistan-based terrorists” in last month’s attack on civilians in a tourist area in Kashmir.

It said that its military actions on Wednesday had been “measured, responsible and designed to be nonescalatory in nature.”

It added that it had targeted only “known terror camps.”

India’s defense ministry said in the statement that nine sites had been targeted in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir.

“Our actions have been focused, measured and non-escalatory in nature,” it said in a statement, calling it “Operation Sindoor.”

US President Donald Trump, speaking in the Oval Office on Tuesday, called the situation “a shame.”

The US had tried to calm tensions, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio reaching out to both sides last week.

“They’ve been fighting for a long time,” Trump said.

“I just hope it ends very quickly.”

The Indian government said its forces had struck nine sites in Pakistan and on Pakistan’s side of the disputed Kashmir region.

Pakistani military officials said that five places had been hit, in Punjab Province and its part of Kashmir.

“The wildcard is the Pakistani response to this,” said Aroop Chatterjee, managing director for macro strategy and emerging markets at Wells Fargo in New York.

“If it’s similarly measured then we can potentially de-escalate.”

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif called India’s actions a “cowardly attack” and said the nation would retaliate.

Pakistan said it shot down five Indian airplanes and took Indian soldiers prisoner in retaliation to Indian military strikes early Wednesday.

The downing of the jets are not “hostile acts” and Pakistan was defending its territory, the country’s Defense Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif said in an interview with Bloomberg TV on Wednesday.

According to India’s NDTV, Operation Sindoor has only completed its first phase, with more strikes against targets in Pakistan likely:

*  *  *

Things just escalated in a huge and dangerous way between nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan, with the Indian government confirming it has launched strikes on nine sites inside Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir.

“No Pakistani military facilities have been targeted,” the statement added according to Reuters, in a ‘counter-terror’ operation dubbed “Operation Sindoor”.

India identified that it hit the terrorist infrastructure of Islamist groups in retaliation for the April 22 terror attack on Indian tourists in Kashmir which killed 26 in the scenic Pahalgam area.

The victims had been singled out by the gunmen, which the Indian government has suggested were sponsored by Pakistan, for being Hindu in a sectarian mass killing.

“These steps come in the wake of the barbaric Pahalgam terrorist attack in which 25 Indians and one Nepali citizen were murdered. We are living up to the commitment that those responsible for this attack will be held accountable,” India’s statement read in the wake of the new military action.

The fact that India is taking pains to let the Pakistani side know that no official military sites were targeted strongly suggests New Delhi is trying to strike without it leading to escalation.

Tensions have been soaring since last month, with mirror build-ups of forces on both sides of the disputed Line of Control (LOC) which separates the two countries. There have been military drills, and even recent ballistic missile test launches by Pakistan.

Pakistani security officials have said a child was killed and two others were injured in the early Thursday (local) attack. India said that these were “sites where terrorist attacks against India have been planned.”

The statement continued, “Our actions have been focused, measured and non-escalatory in nature. It claimed, “India has demonstrated considerable restraint in selection of targets and method of execution.”

Dubious reports quickly emerged that jets have been shot down, but these claims appears to be completely unverified. Fake claims and counter-claims have been flying in the hours after these cross-border strikes.

Is this the big escalation many have feared, or will this episode of attacks on apparently unaffiliated terror groups within Pakistan’s zone of control lead to de-escalation and cooling? It depends largely on if Pakistan responds militarily. The two sides hate each other and have fought at least three historic wars.