The uneasy calm that had settled over India and Pakistan in the past two weeks was swiftly shattered in the early hours of Wednesday morning.
In the days that followed the deadly attack that killed 25 Indian tourists and a guide in Kashmir in late March, the Indian government made it clear it held Pakistan responsible – and it intended to avenge the deaths.
Meanwhile, the Indian public – horrified by accounts that tourists had been targeted and shot for being Hindu – was baying for blood. Newspaper columns and nightly discussions on TV news channels rang with calls for the prime minister, Narendra Modi, to take decisive action against Pakistan and “teach them a lesson” once and for all.
But a fortnight after the attack, with no clear impending action or military mobilisation in sight, some had wondered whether India really intended to retaliate. “What is going on?” asked one senior military analyst on Tuesday. By 1am on Wednesday, that question was answered.
In highly coordinated air and drone strikes, Indian missiles hit nine targets, both in the part of the Kashmir region administered by Pakistan and in Pakistan’s Punjab province. It was the first time since the 1971 Indo-Pakistan war that India had fired missiles into Punjab.
India said it had struck at “terrorist infrastructure”: camps and madrasas that were connected to the two main Islamist militant groups, Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed, behind some of the deadliest terrorist attacks in India over the past three decades. It emphasised it had not taken aim at any Pakistani military bases or weaponry. The strikes also took place entirely from Indian airspace, an apparent lesson from its last confrontation with Pakistan in 2019, when an Indian military aircraft was shot down over Pakistan and its pilot taken captive.
To some, it seemed as if India was giving Pakistan an “off ramp” with these strikes, to prevent them escalating. As was widely agreed by analysts, both countries and their allies can ill afford events spiralling out of their control into an all-out hot war, not seen between the two countries since 1999.
Pakistan is already in the midst of the worst security crisis in decades, as it battles a surge in Islamist militants on its Afghan border and separatists in its south-western province of Balochistan. The country is also in the grip of an economic crisis, with the Sharif coalition government widely seen as weak and unpopular.
Yet in the buildup to the strikes, Pakistan’s powerful army chief, Gen Asim Munir, had already vowed that Pakistan would more than match any aggression by India. After India’s strike, Pakistan was unequivocal in its response: it was nothing short of an “act of war” by India. It furthermore claimed to have shot down five of the Indian military aircraft that carried out the attacks – which the Indian government has not so far commented on – and made it clear that it intended to go further.
A statement by Pakistan’s national security council accused India of “igniting an inferno” and said the Pakistan army had been authorised to respond to defend Pakistan’s sovereignty.
Pakistan’s military has long been the most powerful institution in the country. With the Sharif government weakened, the decision of how to respond is widely acknowledged to be in the hands of Munir.
For those hoping for a swift de-escalation of tensions, this is a cause of concern. Munir is known to be an ideological hardliner on India and his comments on Kashmir have already been seen as highly inflammatory in Delhi. He is also known as favouring aggressive action and projections of military strength over attempts at diplomacy.
“The worry here is that General Munir is not a thinking general; he’s rash, he’s reckless and he’s highly nationalistic,,” said Ayesha Siddiqua, a Pakistan political scientist. “We’ve already seen his gung-ho approach.”
Pakistan’s military may also see India’s decision to strike at least three locations, including a mosque, inside Punjab as a direct provocation that could warrant a powerful retaliation.
Punjab is not only the political base of the Sharif family but also the military heartland of the country, home to the majority of soldiers and the army leadership. Indian missiles have not landed there for more than 50 years.
It remains unclear what targets Pakistan might aim for. While Pakistan accuses India of funding cross-border terrorism, there are no equivalent militant camps it could strike over the border. And to strike directly against Indian army targets could be seen as a direct escalation of the conflict. What analysts did agree on was that Pakistan was likely to strike sooner than later – and the longer the wait, the greater the chance of escalation.
To some, the greatest worry of all is that India and Pakistan may have lost the US as a third-party mediator. In their 75 years as neighbours and enemies, Pakistan and India have been brought back from the brink of conflict on multiple occasions by crucial intervention by the US, a country that commands unmatched power and influence on both sides of the border and has always been willing to get its hands dirty in their disputes.
Yet with Donald Trump in charge of the White House, the mood is very different and he has shown little interest in getting involved. “They’ve been fighting for a long time. I just hope it ends very quickly,” Trump said dismissively, after news of India’s strikes broke.
Siddiqua said that without the US as a powerful, neutral mediator, altercations between the two countries – who are both looking to claim victory – could easily spiral out of control. “My worry is that, for the first time, India and Pakistan might be on their own here,” she said.
