IAF Air Strike in Pakistan: Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan has called for an emergency meeting (File) IAF Air Strike in Pakistan: Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan has called for an emergency meeting (File) IAF Surgical Strike: Hours after Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan asked the armed forces and the people of Pakistan to remain “prepared for all eventualities,” it summoned the Acting Indian High Commissioner in Islamabad. The Pakistani government condemned the air strikes conducted by the IAF in Balakot calling it the “violation of its territorial sovereignty” by fighter jets, PTI reported. “The Acting Foreign Secretary summoned the Indian Acting High Commissioner and strongly condemned the Indian violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” the Foreign Office said in a statement. The statement came after an emergency meeting to review the situation, PTI reported. Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi had said India has committed “aggression” by violating the LoC and Islamabad has “right to self-defence”. “This action has been done for domestic consumption being in an election environment, putting regional peace and stability at grave risk. The claimed area of the strike is open for the world to see the facts on the ground. For this domestic and international media is being taken to the impact site. The forum concluded that India has committed uncalled for aggression to which Pakistan shall respond at the time and place of its choosing,” Dawn quoted a government statement. Read in MALAYALAM, BANGLA, TAMIL “He [Prime Minister Khan] decided to engage with global leadership to expose irresponsible Indian policy in the region,” the statement further reads. EXPLAINED | After India strike, what can be Pakistan’s options? “It has been decided that international leadership will be engaged with through the foreign office and prime minister. At the request of Pakistan, there is an OIC (Organisation of Islamic Cooperation) conflict group emergency meeting underway [in Jeddah], and Tehmina Janjua is representing Pakistan there. We will present Pakistan’s point of view at that forum,” Pakistan said in a statement. India early Tuesday morning carried out a “non-military, preemptive action” against a major terror camp of the Jaish-e-Mohammed in Balakot. The strike was conducted after the government received credible information about “another suicide terror attack” by JeM in various parts of the country. The JeM claimed the responsibility for the Pulwama attack in Kashmir that killed 40 CRPF officers. #India has committed uncalled aggression to which #Pakistan shall respond at the time and place of its choosing. This was told to a special meeting of the National Security Committee chaired by the Prime Minister Imran Khan in Islamabad today. pic.twitter.com/xqgXtKkCtw — Govt of Pakistan (@pid_gov) February 26, 2019 “First, they committed aggression against Pakistan today. It is a violation of the LoC. I consider it a violation of the LoC, and Pakistan his right to give a suitable response in self-defence,” Qureshi told reporters after an “emergency meeting” with high-level officials at the Foreign Office (FO) for consultations. He also added that Pakistan had repeatedly warned the world against India’s reaction. Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, right, heads an emergency meeting in Islamabad. (AP) Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, right, heads an emergency meeting in Islamabad. (AP) Asking Pakistani’s to remain calm, Qureshi said, “Nation should not be worried over the Indian act as the defenders of the country are fully prepared to respond to any misadventure.” He also added that Pakistan is a “peace-loving” nation and has “registered successes in the war on terrorism,” reported Radio Pakistan. He also briefed Khan after the meeting. Read | IAF strikes JeM camp in Balakot: Full text of India’s statement Senator Sherry Rehman, a leading opposition leader of the Pakistan Peoples Party, said that “Indian incursion” across the LOC is strategically “ill-advised and tactically pointless”. “Such moves only ratchet up tensions in a region bristling with anger. “Obvious that (Prime Minister Narendra) Modi’s election wardrums make prospects for talks collateral damage. India’s ruling party sees no other way to win the elections hence, itching for war,” Rehman said in a tweet. Meanwhile, India’s Opposition leaders congratulated the Indian Air Force on the strike. Congress president Rahul Gandhi, party leader Shashi Tharoor, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Delhi Chief Minister and Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal, tweeted congratulating the armed forces for striking terror camps.<doc-sep>BALAKOT, Pakistan/NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India said its warplanes killed “a very large number” of fighters when they struck a militant training camp inside Pakistan on Tuesday, raising the risk of conflict between the nuclear-armed neighbors, although Pakistan officials denied there had been casualties. Pakistan said it would respond at a time and place of its choice, with a military spokesman even alluding to its nuclear arsenal, highlighting the escalation in hostile rhetoric from both two sides since a suicide bombing in Kashmir this month. The spokesman said a command and control authority meeting, which decides over the use of nuclear weapons, had been convened for Wednesday, adding: “You all know what that means.” The air strike near Balakot, a town 50 km (30 miles) from the frontier, was the deepest cross-border raid launched by India since the last of its three wars with Pakistan in 1971 but there were competing claims about any damage caused. The Indian government, facing an election in the coming months, said the air strikes hit a training camp belonging to Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), the group that claimed a suicide car bomb attack that killed at least 40 Indian paramilitary police in Kashmir on Feb. 14. Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale said “a very large number” of militants were killed in the strikes in northeast Pakistan. “The existence of such training facilities, capable of training hundreds of jihadis, could not have functioned without the knowledge of the Pakistani authorities,” Gokhale said. Pakistan denies harboring JeM. A senior Indian government source said that 300 militants had been killed in the strikes and that the warplanes had ventured as far as 80 km (50 miles) inside Pakistan. But no evidence was provided to back up the claims of casualties. The government said the action was ordered as India said it had intelligence that Jaish was planning more attacks. Pakistani officials dismissed the Indian claims, saying the Indian aircraft had dropped their bombs in a wooded area, causing no damage or casualties. Villagers near the town of Balakot were shaken from their sleep by the air strikes. They said only one person was wounded in the attack and they knew of no fatalities. “We saw fallen trees and one damaged house, and four craters where the bombs had fallen,” said Mohammad Ajmal, a 25-year-old who visited the site. A resident, who did not want to give his name, said there was a nearby madrasa Islamic college run by Jaish, though most villagers were guarded in talking about any militant neighbors. JeM is a primarily anti-India group that forged ties with al Qaeda and has been on a U.N. terrorist list since 2001. In December 2001, Jaish fighters, along with members of another Pakistan-based militant group, Lashkar-e-Taiba, attacked India’s parliament, which almost led to a fourth war. HOSPITALS ON ALERT There has been mounting impatience in India to avenge the Feb. 14 attack, which was the most deadly seen in Kashmir during an insurgency that has lasted three decades, and as news of the raid broke, celebrations erupted across the country. “I want to assure you our country is in safe hands,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi said to cheers at a rally in western India hours after the raid. “I won’t let the country down.” Slideshow ( 4 images ) Pakistan’s top civilian and military leaders rejected India’s comments that it had struck a “terrorist camp” inside Pakistan, warning that they would retaliate. Pakistan’s National Security Committee (NSC), comprising top officials including Prime Minister Imran Khan and army chief Qamar Javed Bajwa, said Khan would “engage with global leadership to expose irresponsible Indian policy”. It also warned that “Pakistan shall respond at the time and place of its choosing” to Indian aggression. China, Pakistan’s long-time ally, and United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged both countries to exercise restraint. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement issued in Washington that he had talked to Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj and Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi separately and encouraged both countries to “exercise restraint ... and avoid further military activity.” Slideshow ( 4 images ) He said he had underscored to Qureshi “the urgency of Pakistan taking meaningful action against terrorist groups operating on its soil.” Swaraj said she had spoken to Pompeo and Indian diplomats had met foreign ambassadors to assure them no escalation was planned. But as fears grew that the conflict could escalate, hospitals in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province were ordered to set a quarter of beds aside for “a national cause”, officials said. “We put all hospitals in the province on high alert due to the present situation on the border with India and issued directives to all heads of the hospitals to be prepared for any sort of emergency,” provincial secretary health Dr Farooq Jameel told Reuters. Indian and Pakistan troops exchanged gunfire along several sectors of their contested border in Kashmir later on Tuesday and local officials on the Pakistani side said at least four people had been killed and seven wounded. Giving the Pakistan military’s account of the Indian incursion, spokesman Major General Asif Ghafoor said Pakistani aircraft were patrolling and identified Indian jets on the Indian side of the border near Okara and Lahore in Punjab as well as Muzaffarabad where they crossed and were engaged. They left Pakistani airspace after only four minutes. He denied the incursion had caused any damage, saying there was no debris, “not even a single brick” and no casualties. “You have proved you are not a democracy, you have chosen the path of war,” he said, addressing his remarks to India.<doc-sep>Both India and Pakistan claim all of Muslim-majority Kashmir, but control only parts of it. The nuclear-armed nations have fought three wars and a limited conflict since independence from Britain in 1947 - and all but one were over Kashmir.<doc-sep>Imran Khan had asked the armed forces and the people of Pakistan to be prepared for "all eventualities." Highlights Prime Minister Narendra Modi is meeting with top officials Amid rising tension, many airports in north India shut down Pakistan has also stopped flights from Islamabad and Lahore In an escalation of hostilities a day after Indian Air Force Jets crossed the Line of Control and struck a terror training camp, Pakistan claimed "strikes across Line of Control from within Pakistani airspace". There were reports of Pakistani fighter jets violating Indian air space in Jammu and Kashmir's Poonch and Rajouri sectors. A Pakistani F-16 aircraft crashed on its territory, in the Lam Valley area along the Line of Control. Prime Minister Narendra Modi left an event early and met with top officials including National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, the Defence and Foreign Secretaries and intelligence officials. Amid rising tension, India will avoid the Pakistani airspace, said officials. Eight airports in north India, including Amritsar, Chandigarh, Dehradun, Jammu, Srinagar and Leh, were declared shut by the Airports Authority of India, but the order was withdrawn within hours. Pakistan has stopped flights from Islamabad and Lahore. The area near the Line of Control has been on high alert amid warnings of retaliation by Islamabad after India's fighter jets destroyed a terror camp of the Jaish-e-Mohammed in Balakot, around 80 km from the Line of Control. India said it was a "non-military and pre-emptive" strike based on credible inputs that Jaish was training suicide bombers for more attacks like Pulwama. Over 40 soldiers were killed on February 14 when a Jaish-e-Mohammed suicide bomber attacked a security convoy. In a press release titled "Pakistani Strikes Back", Islamabad said on its strike claim: "This was not retaliation to continued Indian belligerence. Pakistan has therefore, taken strikes at non-military target, avoiding human loss and collateral damage. Sole purpose being to demonstrate our right, will and capability for self defence. We have no intention of escalation, but are fully prepared to do so if forced into that paradigm. That is why we undertook the action with clear warning and in broad daylight." Amid the worst escalation between the two countries in decades, several countries have urged restraint. This morning, Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj said during a trilateral meeting in China that India wants to avoid any "further escalation of the situation". "The limited objective of that pre-emptive strike was to act decisively against the terrorist infrastructure of Jaish-e-Mohammed in order to pre-empt another terror attack in India," Sushma Swaraj said in Wuzhen. "India does not wish to see further escalation of this situation. India will continue to act with responsibility and restraint," she stated.<doc-sep>
Military tensions between nuclear-armed neighbours India and Pakistan have sharply escalated after an airstrike across the Pakistani border prompted an angry vow of retribution. Late on Tuesday, India’s foreign secretary claimed the country’s air force had launched strikes against a militant camp in Pakistani territory, with an Indian government source saying 300 militants had been killed. Pakistan has denied any casualties, but said it will act “at the time and place of its choosing” in response to the incursion. India said the airstrikes hit a training camp used by Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), the group that claimed credit for a suicide car bomb attack killed at least 40 Indian paramilitary police in Kashmir on February 14. The air strike was ordered as India said it had intelligence that JeM was planning more attacks. “In the face of imminent danger, a pre-emptive strike became absolutely necessary,” Vijay Gokhale, India’s top diplomat, said. “The existence of such training facilities, capable of training hundreds of jihadis could not have functioned without the knowledge of the Pakistani authorities.” Breaking: Delhi, Mumbai and five other cities have been put on the "highest alert" for the next 72 hours in anticipation of possible terror attacks in the region by militant groups. (Via Times of India) — PM Breaking News (@PMBreakingNews) February 27, 2019 Pakistan denies harbouring JeM, a primarily anti-India group that forged ties with al-Qaeda and has been on a UN terror list since 2001. In December 2001, Jaish fighters, along with members of another Pakistan-based militant group, Lashkar-e-Taiba, attacked India’s parliament. That almost led the two countries to go to war for a fourth time. Mr Gokhale said “a very large number” of militants were killed in the strike on a training base in Balakot, a town in a remote valley in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, but did not provide a precise figure for the casualties. The camp commander was Maulana Yusuf Azhar, a brother-in-law of JeM leader Masood Azhar, Mr Gokhale said. Pakistan downplayed the severity of airstrike, saying its own warplanes had chased off the Indian aircraft, which had released their “payload” in a forested area, causing no casualties and no serious material damage. Pakistani military spokesman Major General Asif Ghafoor said on Twitter “facing timely and effective response from Pakistan Air Force”, the Indian aircraft “released payload in haste, while escaping, which fell near Balakot. No casualties or damage”. Payload of hastily escaping Indian aircrafts fell in open. pic.twitter.com/8drYtNGMsm — Maj Gen Asif Ghafoor (@OfficialDGISPR) February 26, 2019 A meeting of Pakistan’s National Security Committee, which includes Prime Minister Imran Khan, later warned that Pakistan would “respond at the time and place of its choosing”. Analysts have alleged Pakistani militants have their training camps in the area, although Pakistan has always denied the presence of any such camps. Australia’s Foreign Minister Marise Payne urged Pakistan to take action against extremist groups, including JEM and Lashkar-e-Taiba. “It can no longer allow extremist groups the legal and physical space to operate from its territory,” Senator Payne said on Tuesday night. She also echoed calls from the European Union and China for calm in the region. “Australia urges both sides to exercise restraint, avoid any action which would endanger peace and security in the region, and engage in dialogue to ensure that these issues are resolved peacefully,” she said. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who faces a tight election in coming months, has vowed a strong response to the February 14 attack, the deadliest single assault on Indian forces in 30 years of insurgency in Jammu & Kashmir, India’s only Muslim-majority state. -with AAP