India says its fighter jets crossed a disputed border before dawn Tuesday into neighboring Pakistan, conducting airstrikes on a militant training camp and
India says its fighter jets crossed a disputed border before dawn Tuesday into neighboring Pakistan, conducting airstrikes on a militant training camp and killing «a very large number of terrorists.»
Pakistan confirmed that Indian planes entered its airspace, by tweet. But the spokesperson for the Pakistan Armed forces said they were forced to drop their payload in an open field, after Pakistan scrambled its own jets, and that there were no casualties or damage.
What actually happened in the Pakistani area of Balakot may only be known to local villagers, who told Reuters they heard four loud bangs overnight. They said only one person was wounded by bomb shards.
Still, Pakistan’s foreign minister denounced what he called «Indian aggression» and threatened «a befitting response.»
Tensions between nuclear-armed neighbors India and Pakistan have seldom been higher — even before Tuesday’s incursion. After a suicide car bomb earlier this month in disputed Kashmir, the two countries had already recalled their envoys from one another’s capitals, and vowed to use military firepower if the other attacked first.
Indian officials were quick to herald the bravery of their Air Force pilots, even before full details of Tuesday’s airstrikes were known.
«Each time you attack us, be certain we will get back at you, harder and stronger,» India’s minister of state for external affairs, Vijay Kumar Singh, tweeted early Tuesday, amid reports of the strike but before officials had confirmed it.
The head of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, Amit Shah, tweeted that the attack demonstrates that India is «safe and secure under the strong & decisive leadership» of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
