India: Pakistan Launched Multiple Attacks Along India's Western Border

Reuters

A family sits in an open restaurant just before a suspected Pakistani attack in Jammu, May 8, 2025.

Pakistan's armed forces launched "multiple attacks" using drones and other munitions along India's entire western border on Thursday night and early Friday, 9 May 2025, the Indian army said, as conflict between the nuclear-armed neighbours further escalated.

The old foes have been clashing since India struck multiple locations in Pakistan last Wednesday that it said were "terrorist camps", in retaliation for a deadly attack on Hindu tourists in Indian Kashmir last month.

Pakistan denied it was involved in the attack but both countries have exchanged cross-border fire and shelling and sent drones and missiles into each other's airspace since then, with nearly four dozen people dying in the violence.

Since a small-scale conflict between the two nations in the Kargil region of Kashmir in 1999, the fighting has been the deadliest. This is the first time since their full-scale conflict in 1971 that India has targeted cities in Pakistan's mainland provinces outside of Pakistani Kashmir.

The Indian army said Pakistani troops had committed "numerous cease-fire violations" along the countries' de facto border in Kashmir, a region split but claimed by both.

"The drone attacks were effectively repulsed and befitting reply was given to the CFVs (ceasefire violations)," Reuters quoted the Indian army, adding all "nefarious designs" would be responded to with "force".

Pakistan Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said, according to Reuters, that the Indian army's statement was "baseless and misleading", and that Pakistan had not undertaken any "offensive actions" targeting areas within Indian Kashmir or beyond the country's border.

Islamabad had earlier denied attacking Pathankot city in India's Punjab state, Srinagar in the Kashmir valley, and Rajasthan state's Jaisalmer, saying the accusations were "unfounded" and "politically motivated".

A "major infiltration bid" was "foiled" in Kashmir's Samba region on Thursday night, India's Border Security Force said, according to Reuters, and heavy artillery shelling persisted in the Uri area on Friday, according to a security official who did not want to be named.

Shelling from Pakistan damaged several religious sites and homes in Indian Kashmir near the Pakistani border on the second day of major clashes between the

"Several houses caught fire and were damaged in the shelling in the Uri sector...one woman was killed and three people were injured in overnight shelling," Reuters quoted the official.

Sirens blared for more than two hours on Friday in India's border city of Amritsar, which houses the Golden Temple revered by Sikhs, and residents were asked to remain indoors.

Hotels reported a sharp fall in occupancy as tourists fled the city by road since the airport was closed.
"We really wanted to stay but the loud sounds, sirens, and blackouts are giving us sleepless nights. Our families back home are worried for us so we have booked a cab and are leaving," said a British national who did not want to be named.

Other border areas, including Bhuj in Gujarat, took precautionary precautions on Friday, with authorities stating that tourist buses were on ready to evacuate inhabitants near the Pakistan border. Schools and coaching facilities were closed in Rajasthan's desert district of Bikaner, and inhabitants near the Pakistan border were told to relocate further away and consider staying with relatives or utilising government-arranged housing.

World powers ranging from the United States to China have encouraged the two countries to deescalate tensions, and US Vice President JD Vance reaffirmed the request on Thursday.

"We want this thing to de-escalate as quickly as possible. We can't control these countries, though," he said in an interview on Fox News show "The Story with Martha MacCallum."

Since their independence from colonial British rule in 1947, Hindu-majority India and Islamic Pakistan have had tense relations. Kashmir, a Muslim-majority region, has been the focus of conflict, with two of their three wars fought over it.



PUKMEDIA