Fierce cross-border violence intensifies after India’s earlier strikes, while world powers call for urgent de-escalation.
Pakistan’s armed forces launched “multiple attacks” along India’s entire western border late Thursday and early Friday, using drones and other munitions, the Indian army said, as tensions between the nuclear-armed rivals escalated sharply.
The wave of attacks came in response to India’s strikes earlier this week on what it described as “terrorist camps” inside Pakistan, retaliating for a deadly attack last month in Kashmir, a disputed Himalayan region long at the heart of India-Pakistan tensions.
Pakistan has denied involvement in the Kashmir attack and rejected claims it struck Indian cities including Pathankot, Srinagar, and Jaisalmer, calling India’s accusations “unfounded” and “politically motivated.”
Since Wednesday, both countries have engaged in intense cross-border shelling, missile launches, and drone incursions, with nearly four dozen casualties reported so far.
According to the Indian army, Pakistani forces carried out “numerous ceasefire violations” along the de facto Kashmir border, known as the Line of Control (LoC). “The drone attacks were effectively repulsed and befitting reply was given to the CFVs (ceasefire violations),” the army stated, vowing that all “nefarious designs” would be met with “force.”
A major infiltration attempt was thwarted Thursday night in Kashmir’s Samba region, India’s Border Security Force reported, while heavy artillery shelling continued Friday in the Uri sector. A security official, speaking anonymously, said several houses were set ablaze in the Uri shelling, leaving one woman dead and another injured.
In the border city of Amritsar, home to the Golden Temple, sirens blared for over two hours on Friday as authorities urged residents to stay indoors amid the heightened military activity.
World powers, including the United States and China, have called on both nations to exercise restraint. U.S. Vice President JD Vance on Thursday emphasized the need for calm, telling Fox News, “We want this thing to de-escalate as quickly as possible. We can’t control these countries, though.”
India and Pakistan, which emerged as separate nations after their independence from Britain in 1947, have fought three wars — two of them over Kashmir. The region remains a flashpoint for violence, with its Muslim-majority population and divided control fueling long-standing hostilities between the Hindu-majority India and Islamic Pakistan.
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