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

By Sophia Saifi, Vedika Sud, Jerome Taylor and Ross Adkin, CNN

Islamabad, Pakistan / New Delhi, India (CNN) — India launched military strikes on targets in Pakistan, both countries said on Wednesday, with Pakistan claiming it had shot down five Indian Air Force jets in response, in a major escalation between the nuclear-armed rivals.

India’s missile strikes early Wednesday morning targeted “terrorist infrastructure” in Pakistan’s densely populated Punjab province and Pakistan-administered Kashmir, it said. They come more than two weeks after a massacre of tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir that New Delhi blamed on its neighbor.

Pakistan said it shot down five Indian Air Force jets, including three Rafale jets, one MiG-29 and one SU-30 fighter during India’s attack, as well as one drone.

The briefing from a Pakistani security source did not say where precisely the jets were downed, or how. CNN cannot independently verify the claims and has reached out to the Indian government for a response.

Muslim-majority Pakistan and Hindu-majority India have inched closer to open conflict since the massacre last month, with India’s Hindu-nationalist government under intense pressure from its base to respond to the attack, in which gunmen targeted tourists in a popular holiday spot.

From early Wednesday the two sides have exchanged shelling and gunfire across their border and a CNN journalist in Pakistan-administered Kashmir heard multiple loud explosions.

Witnesses in Indian-administered Kashmir’s biggest city Srinagar told CNN that a blast had rocked the city, its cause currently unknown. The director of the city’s airport told CNN the airport had been closed to civilian traffic.

The US State Department said it was “closely monitoring” the flare-up between the neighboring South Asian countries, which have fought three wars over Kashmir since their independence from Britain in 1947.

“Our actions have been focused, measured and non-escalatory in nature,” India’s defense ministry said in a statement on its strikes, which it said and were in response to last month’s massacre.

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

Pakistan rejected that claim, saying the attack largely harmed civilians – killing at least three, including a child, and injuring at least a dozen others.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said the country had the right to respond to what he described as an “act of war,” adding that a “befitting reply is being given.”

Pakistani military sources told CNN five locations were struck at Kotli, Ahmadpur East, Muzaffarabad, Bagh, and Muridke.

Ahmadpur East and Muridke are both in Pakistan’s densely populated Punjab province and are the deepest India has struck inside Pakistan since the 1971 Indo-Pakistan war.

Wednesday’s attacks are the first time since 2019 that India has conducted strikes inside Pakistan’s territory, when Indian jets targeted multiple locations after it blamed Islamabad for a suicide car bomb attack that killed at least 40 Indian paramilitary personnel in the region.

India’s military said it had hit nine targets in “Operation Sindoor.”

“Justice is Served,” the Indian Army wrote on X in a short statement. “Jai Hind!” it added, meaning “Victory to India.”

Senior Indian officials have spoken with counterparts in a number of countries to brief them on the steps taken by New Delhi, a senior Indian government official told CNN.

Among the countries briefed were the United States, United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Russia.

Flashpoint

Kashmir is one of the world’s most dangerous flashpoints. It is controlled in part by India and Pakistan, but both countries claim it in its entirety.

Relations between India and Pakistan have cratered in recent weeks following the deadly rampage by gunmen who murdered 26 people, the majority Indian tourists, at a scenic spot in Kashmir, in the deadliest attack on Indian civilians in years.

The massacre sparked immediate widespread anger in India, putting Modi under tremendous public pressure to retaliate with force.

India has long accused Pakistan of harboring militant groups that conduct attacks across the border, a charge Islamabad denies, and had vowed to retaliate against those they deemed responsible.

Major world powers, including the United States, had urged restraint in the weeks after last month’s attack, fearful that a military conflict between India and Pakistan over Kashmir could quickly escalate.

India has accused Pakistan of being involved in the Pahalgam attack — a claim Islamabad denies. Pakistan has offered a neutral investigation into the incident.

In the days after the tourist attack, both countries swiftly downgraded ties with each other and have since been engaging in escalating tit-for-tat hostilities.

India ordered its citizens to return from Pakistan, shut a major border crossing and suspended its involvement in a crucial water-sharing treaty that has been in force since 1960.

Pakistan suspended trade with India and expelled Indian diplomats. It said that any attempt to stop or divert water belonging to Pakistan would be considered an “act of war.”

New Delhi and Islamabad had also been flexing their military might along the Line of Control (LOC), a de facto border that divides Kashmir, with small exchanges of fire across the demarcation in recent days. Both sides have also closed their airspaces to each other’s airlines.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

CNN’s Rhea Mogul, Manveena Suri, Azaz Syed and Vedika Sud contributed to this story

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2025 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.