Donald Trump called the burgeoning conflict between India and Pakistan a ‘shame’ as he learned of overnight exchanges between the two nuclear-armed states.
‘It’s a shame. We just heard about it,’ he told reporters late on Tuesday. ‘They’ve been fighting for a long time … I just hope it ends very quickly.’
India and Pakistan were teetering on the brink of war this morning after New Delhi hit what it called ‘terrorist camps’ overnight, prompting stark threats from Islamabad.
Pakistan claimed to have shot down five Indian fighter jets as it condemned an ‘act of war’ from India, vowing to retaliate after missiles hit Pakistan-administered Kashmir.
Both sides exchanged heavy artillery along their contested frontier into Wednesday. Pakistan reported 26 killed by Indian shelling, and India reported eight the other way.
The Indian army said ‘justice is served’, with New Delhi adding that its actions ‘have been focused, measured and non-escalatory in nature’.
But fears of a full-blown conflict between the two nuclear powers have escalated sharply in the last few hours.
India says it was attacking bases used by those it blames for an attack on the Indian-run side of Kashmir last month – the worst massacre of civilians in India since 2008.
It added that ‘no Pakistani civilian, economic or military targets have been hit’ in the missile attacks’ – an assertion sharply rebuked by Pakistani officials.
Debris of an aircraft lies in the compound of a mosque at Pampore in Pulwama district of Indian controlled Kashmir, Wednesday, May 7, 2025
India said it had evidence of further ‘impending’ attacks, and was acting to ‘deter’ militantism
India claimed to have destroyed a number of what it called ‘terror camps’ in Pakistan
Fighter jets roared through the skies over the Himalayan territory this morning and explosions could be heard near the ‘Line of Control’ in a strike that lasted 25 minutes.
The FCDO warned Brits against all travel within six miles of the India-Pakistan border, 10 miles of the disputed Kashmir border and the Balochistan province of Pakistan.
The Indian government said in a statement in the early hours of Wednesday morning that its armed forces had launched ‘Operation Sindoor’, hitting what it called terrorist infrastructure in ‘Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir’.
It had vowed to strike back after a militant group known as The Resistance Front (TRF) claimed responsibility for a terror attack targeting civilians in India on April 22.
Hindu-majority India accuses Islamic Pakistan of funding and encouraging militancy in Kashmir, the Himalayan region both nations claim in full but rule in part.
Pakistan denies involvement.
Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said today that India had intelligence suggesting that ‘further attacks’ were ‘impending’ before they took action.
India fired missiles across the border into nine Pakistani ‘terror camps’ in Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir early Wednesday
No military facilities were targeted in the strikes
A girl who lives in a village near the Line of control between India and Pakistan, and got injured during shelling by Pakistan gets treated at a hospital in Uri, Indian controlled Kashmir, Wednesday, May 7, 2025
‘Our intelligence monitoring of Pakistan-based terrorist modules indicated that further attacks against India were impending,’ he said in a briefing on the operation today.
‘There was thus a compulsion both to deter and to pre-empt.’
Misri blamed last month’s attack in Indian-administered Kashmir on ‘Pakistani and Pakistan-trained terrorists’, the BBC reports.
He said it was carried out by The Resistance Front, which he claimed was a front for Pakistani Indian-proscribed terrorist organisation Lashkar-e-Taiba.
India struck nine ‘terror bases’ with missiles late on Tuesday night, before both sides exchanged artillery fire.
India then accused Pakistan of ‘again violating’ a ceasefire agreement by ‘firing artillery in Bhimber Gali in Poonch- Rajauri area,’ on the Indian side.
The army ‘is responding appropriately in a calibrated manner,’ it added.
But fears remain that the conflict could blow up into a full-scale war between the two neighbouring countries.
A city view of Muzaffarabad in Pakistan-administrated Kashmir as strikes hit overnight
Fire fighters douse smoke coming out from the debris of an aircraft near Akhnoor on the outskirts of Jammu, India, Wednesday, May 7, 2025
Indian security personnel stand guard in Wuyan near Srinagar on May 7, 2025
‘Pakistan has every right to give a robust response to this act of war imposed by India, and a strong response is indeed being given,’ Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said.
He said the ‘deceitful enemy has carried out cowardly attacks at five locations in Pakistan’ and that his country would retaliate.
Indian missiles hit six locations in Pakistan-administered Kashmir and in the country’s eastern Punjab province, killing at least 26 people, including women and children, said Pakistan’s military spokesperson, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Sharif.
Sharif said the Indian jets also damaged infrastructure at a dam in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, calling it a violation of international norms.
Officials said another 38 people were injured by the strikes, and another five people were killed in Pakistan during exchanges of fire across the border later in the day.
Islamabad said a three-year-old child was among eight civilians killed in the strikes.
In Muzaffarabad, the main city of Pakistan-administered Kashmir, troops cordoned off streets around a mosque Islamabad said was hit, with marks of explosions also visible on the walls of several homes.
Shortly after the missiles, India’s army accused Pakistan of ‘indiscriminate’ firing across the Line of Control (LoC), the de facto border in Kashmir, with bursts of flame as shells landed, AFP reporters saw.
