INDIANS AND Pakistanis awoke on the morning of February 26th to alarming, if contradictory, news. Indian fighter jets bombed an alleged terrorist training camp in Pakistan overnight, officials in Delhi said, in retaliation for a suicide attack that killed some 40 soldiers in Indian-administered Kashmir two weeks ago. They claimed the strike, near the town of Balakot north of Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, destroyed a “massive” facility run by Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM), a jihadist group that took responsibility for the terror attack on February 14th. Unofficial Indian sources estimated the air-raid may have killed as many as 300 jihadists. Pakistan, however, denies any casualties or damage, but issued a vague threat that it will respond in its own time. In a social-media post its military spokesman admitted that Indian aircraft had intruded briefly into Pakistani airspace, but said that when challenged they had “released payloads in haste while escaping”. Reuters, reporting from near the site of the raid, quoted villagers as saying they had heard bombs in the night, but no one was seriously hurt. In a morning press conference Vijay Gokhale, India’s foreign secretary, offered indirect reassurance that India does not seek further escalation. He emphasised that the raid was “non-military” in nature—a way of saying it did not target Pakistan’s formal army—and was designed to avoid civilian casualties. He described the action as pre-emptive, and based on intelligence that JeM was planning further cross-border suicide attacks. He repeated India’s protest that despite repeated requests, backed by evidence, Pakistan had taken no concrete action to dismantle “the infrastructure of terrorism”. The sharp discrepancy over details of the airstrike is not unprecedented. In 2016, following a JeM attack on an Indian army base in Kashmir that left 19 soldiers dead, India claimed to have mounted a series of cross-border commando raids in response, killing numerous jihadists. Pakistan simply denied that it had detected any military action. The wide gap between the two countries’ versions suggests a tacit understanding that neither of the rival nuclear powers wishes to push things too far. In this game India, where the prime concern of governments is to win elections, will make maximum patriotic show of any incident. Pakistan, however, whose army pretends it does not really sponsor terror groups, when everyone knows it does, and which has a long-term aim of prising Muslim-majority Kashmir from India, will minimise its importance. This familiar scenario is especially applicable just now. Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, faces a crucial election in April, and badly wants to flex India’s muscle to impress voters. Pakistan’s army, meanwhile, is keen to exploit deepening troubles in Indian-administered Kashmir, where the chronically restless population has grown increasingly angry with Mr Modi’s heavy-handed rule. But this is not just a game. India’s patience with Pakistani meddling really has worn dangerously thin. Repeatedly over the past three decades, Pakistan-based jihadist groups have struck targets in India, and repeatedly Pakistan has done little more to punish them than give a light slap on the wrist. Whatever the true scope of the Indian strike, it does represent a significant shift in the fraught relations between the countries, which have fought three big wars, several smaller ones and uncounted skirmishes across a 2,000 mile-long border. The raid marks the first use of air-power between the two countries since their last full-out war, in 1971. It also marks the first time since then that India has struck deep inside Pakistani territory, breaking an unspoken rule that confined previous military engagements—such as tit-for-tat artillery exchanges, or “capture the flag” cross-border raids—to the disputed and divided territory of Kashmir. India or Pakistan “proper” were considered out of bounds. This means that India has, in effect, thrown a gauntlet down to Pakistan. The message is that it can no longer so easily hide behind its nuclear deterrent, and global fears of escalation, while allowing its proxies to take potshots at a much bigger and richer neighbour.<doc-sep>In an early morning strike, Indian fighter jets have struck at terrorist targets in Pakistan, destroying a training camp of the Jaish e Mohammed, the terror outfit that had carried out a suicide attack, killing 40 CRPF personnel in Pulwama on February 14. While there has been no official word on it, sources said that 12 Mirage 2000 fighter jets of the air force crossed the border and dropped precision strike bombs on terror camps, causing considerable damage. Estimates for the damage are not currently available. Manu Pubby Explains. (Video of flying fighter jet(shown in the video) is representative only.)<doc-sep>See the recovery efforts in Gaza as ceasefire appears to hold 'Is everything I'm trying to do pointless? ': Syrians helpless in face of 'sham' election Report: US companies may have benefited from forced labor of Uyghurs Residents stand near stalls along a road amidst debris while strong winds batter Balasore district in Odisha state on May 26, 2021 as Cyclone Yaas barrels towards India's eastern coast in the Bay of Bengal. (Photo by Dibyangshu SARKAR / AFP) (Photo by DIBYANGSHU SARKAR/AFP via Getty Images) France's President Emmanuel Macron (L) and Rwanda's President Paul Kagame speak as they walk in the grounds of The Presidential Palace in Kigali on May 27, 2021, after their press conference and prior to their official luncheon. - French President Emmanuel Macron arrived in Rwanda on May 27, 2021, for a highly symbolic visit aimed at moving on from three decades of diplomatic tensions over France's role in the 1994 genocide in the country. Macron is the first French leader since 2010 to visit the East African nation, which has long accused France of complicity in the killing of some 800,000 mostly Tutsi Rwandans. (Photo by Ludovic MARIN / AFP) (Photo by LUDOVIC MARIN/AFP via Getty Images) An Indian army soldier looks towards the site of a gunbattle between Indian army soldiers and rebels inside an army brigade headquarters near the border with Pakistan, known as the Line of Control (LoC), in Uri on September 18, 2016. Militants armed with guns and grenades killed 17 soldiers in a raid September 18 on an army base in Indian-administered Kashmir, the worst such attack for more than a decade in the disputed Himalayan region. / AFP / TAUSEEF MUSTAFA (Photo credit should read TAUSEEF MUSTAFA/AFP/Getty Images) (CNN) — India said there was “incontrovertible evidence” that Pakistan had a “direct hand” in a bomb attack on a convoy that killed at least 40 people in Indian-administered Kashmir. After a Cabinet Committee on Security meeting on Friday, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said in a statement that India would initiate “all possible diplomatic steps” to “ensure the complete isolation from the international community of Pakistan, of which incontrovertible evidence is available of having a direct hand in this gruesome terrorist incident.” Jaitley added that India would downgrade diplomatic relations by withdrawing its “most favored nation status” to Pakistan – a largely symbolic title. Thursday’s attack on a convoy of Indian soldiers killed 40 and wounded five, said M. Dhinakaran, deputy inspector general of the Central Reserve Police Force. It was deadliest attack on security forces since the beginning of the insurgency in the late 1980s. STR/AFP/Getty Images Indian security forces inspect the scene of an attack on a paramilitary convoy. The Indian government has blamed Pakistan-based terrorist organization Jaish-e-Mohammed for the attack. “We demand that Pakistan stop supporting terrorists and terror groups operating from their territory and dismantle the infrastructure operated by terrorist outfits to launch attacks in other countries,” India’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement. On Friday, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi issued a warning to terrorist groups, saying that the “the blood of the people is boiling.” “I want to tell the terrorist organizations and their supporters that have made a huge mistake. They will have to pay a very heavy cost for this. I give assurance to the nation that the forces behind the attack, the culprits behind this attack – they will definitely be punished for their actions,” he said at an event in New Delhi. Pakistan responds Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a statement hours after the attack, describing it as “a matter of grave concern.” “We have always condemned acts of violence anywhere in the world,” the statement said. It continued: “We strongly reject any insinuation by elements in the Indian media and government that seek to link the attack to Pakistan without investigations.” Jaish-e-Mohammed, which translates to the Army of the Prophet Mohammed, is a Pakistan-based group that operates on both sides of the border of the disputed state and seeks to unite the Indian-controlled area of Kashmir with Pakistan. The group was listed as a terrorist organization by the US State Department in 2001, but the effort to include its leader, Masood Azhar, as an “internationally designated terrorist” at the United Nations was vetoed by China in 2017. Azhar founded Jaish-e-Mohammed with support from Osama Bin Laden, the Taliban and several other extremist organizations, according to the UN. The group has been implicated in multiple attacks in India, including the 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament in New Delhi that killed nine people, and on the Jammu and Kashmir legislative assembly building that killed at least 31 people. Thursday’s attack took place in the Pulwama district – about 15 miles (25 kilometers) from Kashmir’s capital, Srinagar. The convoy of 78 vehicles, which was transporting 2,550 paramilitary soldiers, was on the national highway when it was struck by the blast, said Muneer Khan, director general of police. “One vehicle which was part of the convoy carrying the CRPF personnel bore the brunt of the blast resulting in multiple casualties,” a police statement said. STR/AFP/Getty Images A damaged bus is towed away following the attack. Indian PM condemns ‘dastardly attack’ India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted support for soldiers in the state. “Attack on CRPF personnel in Pulwama is despicable. I strongly condemn this dastardly attack. The sacrifices of our brave security personnel shall not go in vain. The entire nation stands shoulder to shoulder with the families of the brave martyrs. May the injured recover quickly,” he wrote. On Friday, Modi reiterated his comments, warning Pakistan that India will not be divided. “If they (Pakistan) think that the kinds of things they are doing, the conspiracies that they are concocting – that they will be successful in creating instability in India, then they should abandon that dream. They will never be able to do it.” Modi has taken a stronger stand toward terrorism in the state since he came to power almost five years ago. In 2018, 253 terrorists were killed by Indian security forces – more than double the number of terrorists killed in 2015, according to the Ministry of Home Affairs. Kashmir has had a tumultuous history since the India-Pakistan partition resulted in a predominantly Hindu India and a Muslim Pakistan. After India gained independence in 1947, Kashmir has been bitterly contested by both nations, resulting in three wars and numerous other skirmishes. The latest attack comes more than two years after armed militants entered an army base in the garrison town of Uri, about 63 miles (102 kilometers) from Srinagar – killing at least 18. Separatist violence in the region has killed more than 47,000 people since 1989, although this toll doesn’t include people who have disappeared due to the conflict. Some human rights groups and nongovernmental organizations put the death toll at twice that amount. CNN’s New Delhi Bureau Chief Nikhil Kumar and Swati Gupta reported and wrote from New Delhi, CNN’s Mukhtar Ahmed reported from Srinagar, India. CNN’s Mitch McCluskey in Atlanta contributed to this report.<doc-sep>
India has launched air strikes on Pakistan for the first time in almost 50 years in the wake of a terrorist attack earlier this month that killed 40 Indian soldiers. On February 14, a 20-year-old Kashmiri suicide bomber drove an explosives-laden vehicle into an Indian military convoy in Awantipora, southeast of the capital of India-controlled Kashmir, Srinagar. It was the deadliest such attack in decades and triggered a dramatic escalation in tensions between India and Pakistan, which India accused of breaching the long-standing cease-fire by having a "direct hand" in the attack. Kashmir has been contested territory ever since the Partition of India in 1947, and is now split between India and Pakistan, with a small portion also controlled by China. The nuclear-armed neighbors are separated by a contentious "line of control," rather than by a stable border. India-controlled Kashmir is widely recognized as one of, if not the most, militarized zones in the world, with one Indian soldier for every 17 civilians as of 2012. India Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale said in a briefing reported by The Guardian that the "pre-emptive" air strike targeted a large training camp of the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) group in Balakot, which claimed responsibility for the terrorist attack. According to Gokhale, "a very large number of JeM terrorists...were eliminated," but Pakistan has insisted there were no casualties or damage, and released pictures on social media to prove it. Pakistan has also denied India's allegation that it had a "direct hand" in the February 14 terrorist attack and warned, via the military's Twitter account, that the state was "fully prepared for a befitting response to any Indian aggression or misadventure." Signaling there could indeed be retaliation, Pakistan's new prime minister, Imran Khan, declared: "Pakistan has the right to an appropriate response, it has the right to self-defence." Tensions are never far from the surface in India-Pakistan relations, with Kashmir almost always at the center. There are regular exchanges of gunfire across the line of control. But the air raid marks a worrying escalation. It is the first time that military aircraft has traversed the boundary since the last of three wars between India and Pakistan in 1971. There are now concerns that this could be the beginning of a fourth. The enduringly fraught state of Kashmir—its violence, creeping radicalization and reports of human rights violations—belies a broader lack of interest from the global community. "The world has never cared as little about Kashmir as it does today," Barkha Dutt, an Indian television journalist and author, wrote in 2017. Polls suggest that Kashmir, which is majority Muslim, wants independence from India, but the frequent civilian protests—and the terrorist attacks, which target India's military grip—are largely ignored, if their demands are heard at all. If in 2000, the former U.S. President Bill Clinton called Kashmir "the most dangerous place in the world," today it rarely gets a mention from world leaders. Already on Sunday, before the overnight Tuesday raid, India was readying to send a further 10,000 troops to Kashmir, while more than 150 suspected separatists have been arrestedby authorities. Civilian attacks on Kashmiris have reportedly risen all across India, where Kashmiris are often subject to prejudice. Since 2014, the Hindu nationalism of India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi has further alienated Kashmir and Kashmiris. It took an intervention by the Supreme Court over the weekend, reminding Modi that he had a duty to protect all Indian citizens, for Modi to say that Kashmiris should be kept safe. In a speech the following day, he said: "Our fight is against terrorism, against the enemies of humanity. It is for Kashmir, not against Kashmir, not against the Kashmiris." With elections on the horizon in May, some observers—like Pakistani senator and former ambassador Sherry Rahman, who spoke to The Guardian—have suggested the strikes are intended to escalate the tensions and boost Modi's reelection chances.