India strikes deep inside Pakistan, Pakistan claims 5 Indian jets shot down, in major escalation

By Sophia Saifi, Vedika Sud, Jerome Taylor, Ross Adkin, Rhea Mogul and Helen Regan, CNN

Islamabad, Pakistan / New Delhi, India (CNN) — India launched military strikes on targets in Pakistan, both countries said on Wednesday and Pakistan claimed it had shot down five Indian Air Force jets, in an escalation that has pushed the two nations to the brink of wider conflict.

India’s missile strikes early Wednesday morning targeted “terrorist infrastructure” across nine sites in Pakistan’s densely populated Punjab province and Pakistan-administered Kashmir, it said. They came in response to a massacre by militants of tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir two weeks ago, that New Delhi blamed on its neighbor.

Pakistan said at least 26 people were killed in Wednesday’s strikes – including women and a three-year-old girl – and 46 wounded. The country’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif described the strikes as “an act of war” and Islamabad has vowed to retaliate.

From early Wednesday the two sides have exchanged shelling across their border, with locals on both sides telling CNN they were taking shelter. A CNN journalist in Pakistan-administered Kashmir heard multiple loud explosions.

“A shell landed at a house close to the mosque in which two people were injured. Shells also hit other houses in our area and we fled from our area to a safer place,” said Shakeel Butt, a resident of Muzaffarabad, in Pakistani-administered Kashmir. A senior Indian defense source said at least eight people had been killed on the Indian side of the border.

Pakistani military sources later said they shot down five Indian Air Force jets and one drone in “self-defense,” claiming three Rafale jets – sophisticated multi-role fighters made in France – were among those downed as well as a MiG-29 and an SU-30 fighter.

A local resident and government official told CNN that an unidentified fighter aircraft had crashed on a school building in Indian-administered Kashmir.

Photos published by AFP news agency showed aircraft wreckage lying in a field next to a red-brick building. But it was not immediately clear from the pictures of the wreckage who the aircraft belonged to.

CNN cannot independently verify the claim and has reached out to the Indian government for a response. At a later press conference where Indian officials said their strikes had targeted training camps belonging to militant groups Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), officials did not address the claims and took no questions from the media.

Deep strikes

Indian jets have previously bombed Pakistani territory following militant attacks on its soil but Wednesday’s operation is the deepest India has struck inside its neighbor since the Indo-Pakistan war of 1971, the biggest of several wars between the two countries.

The situation is now “obviously serious and fluid,” said Fahd Humayun, an assistant professor of political science at Tufts University. “Retaliation to India’s actions will likely now be inevitable.”

India dubbed its military action “Operation Sindoor” – a reference to the red vermilion, or powder, many Hindu women wear on their foreheads after marriage. It is a symbolic nod to April’s massacre on civilians that left several women widowed.

World leaders and the United Nations have expressed concern over the strikes and have urged restraint from both countries. The US Department of State said it was “closely monitoring” the flare-up.

Massacre fall out

Muslim-majority Pakistan and Hindu-majority India have inched closer to open conflict since gunmen massacred 26 people in a popular holiday spot in Indian-administered Kashmir last month, with India’s Hindu-nationalist government under intense pressure from its base to respond to the attack.

Pakistan was swift to deny any link to the attack but in the days following, both countries swiftly downgraded ties with each other and have since been engaging in escalating tit-for-tat hostilities.

Analysts said it was a question of when, not if, India retaliated.

India said its strikes were “focused, measured and non-escalatory in nature.”

“No Pakistani military facilities have been targeted. India has demonstrated considerable restraint in selection of targets and method of execution,” its defense ministry said in a statement.

The strikes have put the region on alert, with commercial airlines keeping almost entirely clear of Pakistani airspace, flight-tracking website Flightradar24 showed. The airport in Srinagar, Indian-administered Kashmir’s biggest city, has been closed to civilian traffic, and several airlines have suspended or diverted flights to Pakistan and northwest India.

Video obtained by CNN on Wednesday showed chaotic scenes at a hospital in Pakistan’s Punjab province, as the wounded were rushed for treatment.

Historical flashpoint

Muslim-majority Kashmir has been a flashpoint in India-Pakistan relations since both countries gained their independence from Britain in 1947.

The two nations that emerged from the bloody partition of British India both claim Kashmir in full and, months after becoming independent, fought their first of three wars over the territory.

The divided region is now one of the most militarized places in the world.

For decades, several domestic militant groups, demanding either independence for Kashmir or for the area to become part of Pakistan, have fought Indian security forces, with tens of thousands killed.

India has long accused Pakistan of harboring these militant groups – a charge Islamabad denies – and had vowed to retaliate against those they deemed responsible.

Tensions over Kashmir have also surged in recent years, after Indian Prime Minister Modi’s government revoked the region’s constitutional autonomy in 2019, bringing it under the direct control of New Delhi.

Observers say a response from Pakistan to the strikes will be likely, and concern now turns to how to manage what comes next.

“Pakistan‘s response is sure to come. The challenge would be to manage the next level of escalation. This is where crisis diplomacy will matter,” said Ajay Bisaria, former high commissioner of India to Pakistan.

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CNN’s Manveena Suri, Azaz Syed, Lex Harvey, Dhruv Tikekar, Brad Lendon and Nectar Gan contributed to this story.