Pakistan has vowed to respond after India’s missile strikes. Here’s what we know

By Sophia Saifi, Rhea Mogul and Jessie Yeung, CNN

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

The escalation puts India and Pakistan in dangerous territory, with Islamabad vowing to retaliate against India’s strikes and the international community calling for restraint.

New Delhi said the strikes are in response to the massacre of 26 people – mostly Indian tourists – who died in April when gunmen stormed a scenic mountain spot in the India-administered part of Kashmir, a disputed border region. India has blamed Pakistan for the attack, which Islamabad denies.

Here’s what we know so far.

What happened with India’s strikes?

India launched “Operation Sindoor” in the early hours of Wednesday morning local time (Tuesday night ET) in both Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

Indian officials claimed no Pakistani civilian, economic or military sites were struck in the 25-minute operation, which targeted the “terrorist infrastructure” of two militant groups – Lashkar-e-Tayyiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed.

But Pakistan is painting a different picture of the strikes – saying civilians were killed and mosques were hit across six locations. CNN has yet to verify those claims.

Some of those strikes hit the densely populated province of Punjab, Pakistan’s military said, and were the deepest India has struck inside Pakistan since one of their wars in 1971.

How did Pakistan respond?

Pakistani security sources claimed they had shot down five Indian Air Force jets and one drone – including three Rafales, sophisticated French-made jets that Delhi only acquired a few years ago.

A high-ranking French intelligence official later told CNN that Pakistan had downed one Rafale, and that French authorities were looking into whether any more were brought down.

One senior Pakistani security source said 125 jets fought for over an hour, staying in their own airspaces and firing missiles from afar, while Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said they had blown the five Indian jets to “smithereens.”

India’s government has stayed silent over the claims. Its embassy in China pushed back against what it called “disinformation” after Chinese state media reported its planes had been downed. CNN has not been able to verify Pakistan’s claim.

But multiple reports of plane crashes in Indian territory have emerged since.

In India’s Punjab province, eyewitnesses and a local government official said a plane crashed out of the night sky in the early hours of Wednesday – around the same time Pakistan claims it shot down the jets. The official told CNN the aircraft was unidentified but “seems to be ours.”

And in Indian-administered Kashmir, eyewitnesses and a local official in the village of Wuyan said an unidentified aircraft crashed on Wednesday. Photos by AFP news agency showed plane wreckage, though it’s not clear who the aircraft belongs to or what brought it down.

How many casualties are there?

The death toll in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir has reached 31, with 57 wounded, Pakistani military spokesman Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry said on Wednesday night local time.

Chaudhry said those killed include teenagers and children – including a 3-year-old.

Twelve civilians in Indian-administered Kashmir were also killed by shelling by Pakistani troops from across the border, a senior Indian defense source told CNN, who added that 57 people had been wounded.

What else is happening on the ground?

The two sides have exchanged shelling and gunfire across the Line of Control (LoC), the de facto border that divides Kashmir, nearly every day since the April 22 massacre that triggered the latest escalation.

Authorities in Indian-administered Kashmir ordered citizens to evacuate from areas deemed dangerous on Wednesday, with some residents telling CNN they were staying in underground bunkers.

The strikes have disrupted flights and sowed confusion, with Pakistan opening and closing parts of its airspace. Multiple major international airlines are avoiding flying over Pakistan.

What prompted all of this? What is Kashmir?

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

The two nations to emerge from the bloody partition of British India – Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan – 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.

India has long accused Pakistan of harboring militant groups there that conduct attacks across the border, something Islamabad has long denied.

The massacre in the tourist hotspot of Pahalgam in April sparked widespread anger in India, putting heavy pressure on the Hindu-nationalist government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

India immediately blamed Islamabad, sparking tit-for-tat retaliatory measures in which both countries downgraded ties, canceled visas for each other’s citizens, and saw India pull out of a key water-sharing treaty.

What could come next?

The last India-Pakistan war over Kashmir in 1999 killed more than a thousand Pakistani troops, by the most conservative estimates.

In the decades since, the two countries have clashed multiple times, most recently in 2019 when India conducted airstrikes in Pakistan after it blamed Islamabad for a suicide car bomb attack in the region.

But those recent clashes did not explode into all-out war. Both sides are aware of the risks; since 1999, the two countries have worked to strengthen their militaries, including arming themselves with nuclear weapons.

How is the world reacting?

The strikes have raised global alarm and pleas for the two nations to prevent further confrontation.

The United Arab Emirates, China, Russia, Turkey and Japan are among the countries urging both sides to de-escalate. United Nations leaders have similarly voiced concern, while well-known activists including Pakistani Nobel Peace Prize winner Malal Youfsafzai have called for peace.

US President Donald Trump, meanwhile, said he was willing to assist in easing the violence – saying on Wednesday, “I get along with both. I know both very well, and I want to see them work it out.”

CNN’s Hira Humayun and Nic Robertson contributed to this story.

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