India and Pakistan seemed dangerously degenerating their armed confrontation on Thursday, because the two countries said that their military sites had been attacked, and bombardments and heavy strikes had been reported during the night on each side of their border.
The military confrontation began on Wednesday, when India struck several sites on the Pakistani territory – its deepest strikes inside Pakistan for decades – in retaliation for a fatal terrorist attack two weeks earlier.
In a sign of the international alarm that the conflict could become uncontrollable, Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke with leaders of the two countries on Thursday and stressed the need for an “immediate de -escalation”, according to the accounting accounts of the State Department of Calls.
India and Pakistan both continued to assert that they were not looking for climbing in their military confrontation. But reality on the ground said that the two nuclear countries were not yet ready to take the slips of their boiling tensions which seemed to take shape.
The Indian government said Thursday that it had thwarted Pakistani attempts to unleash drones and missiles to Indian military targets in more than a dozen cities and cities, many of whom are Air Force bases.
India said that it had answered by hitting Pakistan’s air defense systems and radars near the city of Lahore – the type of blow that often makes the intensification of a military conflict, analysts said.
Pakistan accused India of continuing what he called an illegal assault and said that his forces had shot down more than two dozen Indian drones who entered Pakistan airspace.
In the rapid development situation, the assertions on both sides could not be verified independently.
Late Thursday, some parts of Jammu, an Indian city of about half a million people who are part of the territory of Jammu-et-Cachemire, made breakdowns. The sounds of explosions and sirens could be heard through the city, while shells and drones stole above the head, according to eyewitness accounts.
“The residents are in panic and stay inside,” said Raman Sharma, civil activist and Jammu resident.
The Indian Department of Defense in a position on X, said that the military bases in Jammu and two other cities, Pathankot and Udhampur, which are close to the border of the Cashmere disputed in India with Pakistan, were “targeted by Pakistan using missiles and drones”.
Panic also spread during an evening cricket match in Dharamsala, not far from the area against heavy bombing, where a crowd of more than 10,000 people had to be evacuated and the game canceled.
India and Pakistan, separated from each other at the end of British colonial domination in 1947, fought several wars, the main flash point being their competing affirmations in the Himalayan region of Kashmir, which is divided between them.
The last escalation intervened after a horrible terrorist attack on the Indian side of Kashmir last month which killed 26 civilians. India accused Pakistan of being behind the attack and has sworn military action. Pakistan denied the accusations and warned that it would answer in kind if it was attacked.
After a day of violence on Wednesday, which opened its doors with Indian air strikes and which Pakistani claims to have shot down planes – and reports of dozens of deaths in total – India and Pakistan seemed to be opened to find a way to defuse.
Even if the leaders on both sides have publicly published victorious tones, the Pakistani officials said that the security officials of the two countries had established an initial contact to reopen communication.
President Trump also expressed his desire to help, as US officials said they were committed to the leaders of India and Pakistan to seek a resolution.
On Thursday, there were signs of hopes of commitment, including a wave of diplomatic meetings in New Delhi and Islamabad, the Pakistani capital. The best diplomats from Iran and Saudi Arabia, crucial regional actors who have close ties with the two countries at war were in New Delhi for meetings.
But far from the corridors of power, the news was more violence because the two parties seemed to compete for climbing.
The Indian side said that he had received heavy bombardments of Pakistani positions along the border areas overnight, and he reported attempts concerted by the Pakistani forces to target military cities with missiles and drones.
Indian officials said they had responded forcefully and said they had targeted radars and air defense systems in Pakistan in several places.
The Indian Defense Ministry said that the “Indian response was in the same field with the same intensity as Pakistan”, suggesting that the fleeting on the Pakistani side had targeted to the Indian defense facilities.
“Our intention was not to degenerate questions,” said Vikram Misri, Indian Minister of Foreign Affairs. “We only respond to original climbing. And our response was targeted, precise, controlled and measured. ”
Pakistan, for its part, added to its assertions that it had shot down Indian planes, claiming Thursday that it had shot two dozen drones which had penetrated the Pakistani territory to lead “another act of aggression”.
Early Thursday morning, explosion reports began to flow from several cities in Pakistan, notably Karachi, the main port city of Pakistan, and Rawalpindi, which houses the siege of the powerful military in the country. According to the army.
One of the Indian drones had managed to strike a military target near Lahore, said Lieutenant-General Ahmed Sharif, a Pakistani army spokesperson, adding that four members of his forces had been injured and equipped had been damaged.
In a sign of the escalation of violence, the United States has expressed an alert of American citizens in Lahore, the regional capital of the Punjab province of Pakistan, near the border with India.
“Due to reports of explosions of drones, slaughtered drones and possible airspace incursions in Lahore and near Lahore, the American consulate general of Lahore ordered the consulate staff to rise in place,” the statement said.
While trying to reconstruct the events of a second night of troubled violence, analysts said Pakistan had probably tried to launch an attack that was intended to respond to the strikes of India on Wednesday.
While India had claimed to have limited its objectives on terrorist sites on Wednesday, Pakistan does not have a similar option to hit India, making its task more difficult in the selection of targets.
Pakistan seemed to try to compose the volume of bombing which had already occurred around the line by dividing the cashmere between the two countries, to include the targeting of the more distant cities.
India’s decision to hit the air defense systems from Pakistan suggested that India’s own defense systems may have suffered damage, or that it was trying to establish domination by degenerating the conflict, analysts said.
“Trying of air defense systems implies specific risks, because you give the impression that your opponent could be blinded, or their command and control systems could be left defense or degraded,” said Joshua White, professor at Johns Hopkins University who previously directed policy in South Asia in the National White House Security Council.
“This encourages leaders to act even faster as crises increases,” he added, “changing the tempo and the character of a conflict”.
According to diplomats and analysts of the second night, according to Western diplomats and analysts, was that India did not consider its initial strikes sufficiently decisive to establish a deterrence because it requires Pakistan to do more to stop terrorism. India may have attempted a more energetic response caused by Pakistani attempts at reprisals or independent of them.
Although there was evidence that India had managed to hit installations related to two eminent terrorist outfits, there was more and more proofs that India had suffered in the process.
At least two Indian planes fell into the confrontation, according to Indian officials. At least one of the planes was a French manufacturing burst, according to two people from the French Ministry of Defense with knowledge of the situation. The ministry, as well as the company that manufactures planes, refused to comment.
The diplomatic push the day after the initial confrontation was built around the hope that the heaviest military engagement could be contained in actions early Wednesday.
Pakistani officials said that the national security advisers of the two countries had established “a certain interaction” after the first strikes on Wednesday. The commitment was mentioned for the first time by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Pakistan, Ishaq Dar, in an interview with the TRT news channel. A second civil servant confirmed the contact, but said that he was indirect – suggesting that there were mediators in the mixture.
However, in the two capitals, it was clear that the risk of climbing was far from over.
In New Delhi, the government of Prime Minister Narendra modified informed representatives of the opposition parties on the military action of India, and all political figures have revealed a statement of support for the government’s action.
“This is an ongoing operation,” said the Minister of India for parliamentary affairs, Kiren Rijiju after the meeting.
At the start of his meeting with his Iranian counterpart, the Minister of Foreign Affairs S. Jaishankar of India said that government’s actions against Pakistan had been “targeted and measured”.
“This is not our intention to degenerate the situation,” he said. “However, if there are military attacks against us, there is no doubt that he will be welcomed with a very, very firm answer.”
In Pakistan, the country’s leaders have also shown a united front. On Wednesday, dominant newspapers and social media have images of funerals held on Wednesday for a 7 -year -old boy who was killed in Indian strikes. The first leadership of Pakistan, including the Prime Minister of the country, the president and his head of the army, were all present.
After the funeral, the president of Pakistan, Asif Ali Zardari, condemned the actions of India as “cowardice” and promised that they would be “welcomed by decisive actions”.
Catherine Porter,, Selected Aurelien,, Anupreeta das,, Hari Kumar,, Showkat nanda,, Zia Ur-Rehman,, Edward Wong And Pragati KB Contributed reports.
