Kashmir tensions heat up as India sends warplanes on Pakistan raid
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Indian warplanes breached Pakistani airspace yesterday in a move that sent tensions over disputed Kashmir spiraling, but Islamabad furiously denied claims the strike had destroyed a militant camp and inflicted heavy casualties.
The incursion across the cease-fire line that divides Kashmir between the nuclear-armed neighbors came after India threatened retaliation over a February 14 suicide bombing claimed by the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad group that killed 40 troops in Indian Kashmir.
The escalation triggered international alarm, with China and the European Union both calling for the arch-rivals to show 鈥渞estraint.鈥
New Delhi said its jets had hit a JeM training camp and killed 鈥渁 very large number鈥 of militants training to stage suicide attacks in India.
鈥淚n the face of imminent danger, a preemptive strike became absolutely necessary,鈥 Indian Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale said.
Pakistan said it scrambled its fighters to push back the intruders and denied India鈥檚 claim of heavy casualties, branding it 鈥渟elf-serving, reckless and fictitious.鈥 Foreign Minister Shah Memhmood Qureshi said his country would 鈥渞espond at the time and place of its choosing.鈥
Pakistan military spokesman Major General Asif Ghafoor said on Twitter that the Indian jets had crossed the Line of Control that divides Indian- and Pakistani-administered Kashmir and that they had released a 鈥減ayload in haste while escaping鈥 near Balakot.
He did not say what was meant by a 鈥減ayload鈥 and images he posted on Twitter appeared to show pieces of metal and displaced soil in a heavily forested area.
India鈥檚 foreign ministry also said the camp was at Balakot, but gave no further detail and the exact location remained unclear.
Balakot is in Pakistan鈥檚 northwestern Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, a few kilometers outside of Pakistan-administered Kashmir.
A strike inside undisputed Pakistani territory would be a serious heightening of the rivalry that has existed since they divided after independence from Britain in 1947, according to analysts.
The purported attack was India鈥檚 first use of air strikes against Pakistan since 1971, when the two went to war over Bangladesh鈥檚 independence.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Pakistani counterpart Imran Khan both summoned emergency meetings of top ministers after the attack. Modi had threatened a 鈥渏aw-breaking鈥 response to the February 14 attack.
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