Satellite images released on Thursday showed the extent of damage in Pakistan after India launched strikes in one of the worst escalations of military conflict between the two nuclear-armed powers in more than five decades.
The comparative satellite images of before and after the strikes released by Maxar Technologies showed damage to mosques and buildings in Pakistan’s Punjab province.
The pictures showed the impact on the Masjid-e- Markaz Taiba religious school in the industrial town of Muridke in northeastern Punjab, 33km north of Lahore.
Damage was also seen in the aerial images from Bahawalpur in southern Punjab where the Jamia Mosque Subhal Allah complex came under attack after the precision strike.
The Indian defence ministry on Wednesday said it struck nine terrorists' hideouts in various locations of Pakistan after it blamed two terrorist organisations operating from Islamabad for the deadly attack on tourists in its side of Kashmir on 22 April.
India said "no Pakistani military facilities have been targeted" and it only hit sites "from where terrorist attacks against India have been planned and directed".
However, Pakistan said 31 civilians, including children, were killed in the strikes that hit six locations, calling it an “act of war”.
At least 15 civilians have been confirmed dead so far in Indian-administered Kashmir in Pakistani firing at the border.
The Indian government said the strikes launched under “Operation Sindoor” were part of a “commitment” to hold accountable those responsible for the attack on tourists in Pahalgam in which 26 people were killed. In the worst attack on tourists in the India-side of Kashmir, a total of 25 tourists and a Kashmiri man were killed at a tourist hotspot after several militants opened fire.
Pakistani prime minister Shehbaz Sharif said the strikes were “unprovoked” and said the heinous act of aggression will not go unpunished".
The leader of the country denied involvement in the Pahalgam attack, saying it "wasn't related" to Pakistan, and that his country was "accused for the wrong" reasons.
The targets of the nighttime strikes, Indian officials claimed on Tuesday, were nine facilities allegedly linked to proscribed militant groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed.
The deepest target in Pakistan, the Indian defence ministry said, was Jaish-e-Mohammed headquarters in Bahawalpur which is 100km inside Pakistan.
India said it hit a Lashkar-e-Taiba camp in Muzaffarabad, 30km from the India-Pakistan border.
While Pakistan has denied claims of India striking terror camps, Masood Azhar, chief of Jaish-e-Mohammed, said in a statement that his family members were killed in the strike.
He said his older sister and her husband, his nephew and his nephew's wife, as well as his niece and five children from his family were killed in a strike on the mosque in Bahawalpur, Pakistan.
Masood Azhar, who was in Bahawalpur, is listed as a global terrorist by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) and is sanctioned by countries like the US, UK, and India. He founded the Jaish-e-Mohammed after his release from an Indian prison in a deal for the release of hostages in the 1999 hijacking of Indian Airlines flight IC-814.
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