India and Pakistan escalate attacks, move closer to war

India and Pakistan took another step towards open war after mutual attacks on air bases on Friday (9), in a serious escalation of the conflict between the two nuclear powers.

Islamabad announced late Friday night, Saturday morning (10) local time, that it was launching a military operation against the neighboring country after being targeted by a missile attack, and New Delhi reported explosions on the border and spoke of a "massive drone attack". According to the Times of India newspaper, there is an exchange of artillery fire along the "line of control" between the two countries in the disputed region of Kashmir.

An Indian military official told Reuters that India had launched air strikes against Pakistan, and media reports had reported attacks on four Pakistani military bases. Islamabad closed its airspace and claimed to have targeted three Indian Air Force bases, but this could not be independently verified.

According to Pakistan, this is retaliation after an Indian missile attack targeting military bases near the capital - according to the Pakistani government, most of the projectiles were intercepted and there was no serious damage to military infrastructure.

The sites allegedly bombed by Pakistan are not limited to the Kashmir region, another sign of a widening conflict. On Wednesday (7), the country said it had shot down five Indian Air Force fighter jets .

Pakistan's information minister wrote in a post on X that the military operation was called "Bunyanun Marsoos." The term is taken from the Quran and means a firm and united structure.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has called a meeting of the National Command Authority, the body responsible for making security-related decisions, including those involving the country's nuclear arsenal, for Saturday.

India, for its part, reported explosions in states close to the border with its neighbor and claimed to have shot down hundreds of drones in 26 different locations in Indian Kashmir and other regions.

The holy Sikh city of Amritsar, capital of India's Punjab state, was hit by explosions and power outages throughout Friday, with people rushing to bomb shelters and stocking up on essential supplies. The government in New Delhi ordered the closure of 32 airports in the north and west of the country.

Videos posted on social media showed explosions, plumes of smoke and gunfire in the Indian region of Jammu, where the country's military is said to have launched strikes. Shelling was also reported in Srinagar, where sirens were sounded, a witness told Reuters.

An Indian official was reportedly killed in his home after shelling in the town of Rajouri, while a senior government official, whose identity was not released, was reportedly seriously injured.

This is the biggest escalation of the conflict over Kashmir in nearly three decades. So far, 48 people have been killed in attacks by both sides, and the rivals have made new accusations: Pakistan says India launched a potentially highly destructive ballistic missile attack but that it was unsuccessful.

Thus, the two nuclear-armed countries are moving ever closer to open war, in what would be the fourth armed conflict between the nations created after the collapse of the British colonial system in the Indian subcontinent — but, in a crucial distinction, the first since the two rivals obtained the atomic bomb.

The G7, a diplomatic group made up of the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy and Japan, released a statement on Friday calling for dialogue between India and Pakistan and "maximum restraint" on any military escalation.

The statement "strongly condemns" the terrorist attack in Indian-held Kashmir that sparked the current conflict and calls on the two countries to "engage in direct dialogue to achieve a peaceful resolution." The US State Department said earlier it was in constant contact with India and Pakistan.

The crisis began on April 22 after a terrorist attack by an armed group calling for the secession of Indian Kashmir killed 26 people, most of them Hindu tourists. India blamed the Pakistan-based jihadist group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and accused Islamabad of involvement in the attack, which the Pakistani government denies. The organization, designated a terrorist organization by the United Nations , is suspected of carrying out attacks in Mumbai that killed 166 people in 2008.