Pakistan strikes sites inside India, bringing nuclear rivals nearer to war
The scope of the casualties and damage was not immediately clear. Omar Abdullah, the chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, a territory administered by India, said one government official was killed after his government home was hit by shelling from Pakistan.
Pakistan justified Saturday's military action by framing it as retaliation for New Delhi's attacks on Wednesday, which were the deepest and deadliest strikes inside Pakistan in more than 50 years.
Before Pakistan's military action early Saturday, Pakistan's chief military spokesman Lieutenant General Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry also said India had targeted Nur Khan air base in Rawalpindi, Murid air base in Chakwal and Rafiqui air base near Shorkot with air-to-surface missiles. Most of the missiles, he said in a later appearance, were intercepted and there were no casualties or damage.
India's actions, he said, were 'pushing the whole region toward dangerous war', and he vowed a firm response.
The media wing of Pakistan's military, soon after, said the armed forces were targeting Indian military sites and claimed to have struck multiple locations.
In Srinagar, a site in Indian-administered Kashmir that Pakistani officials said they were targeting, residents heard at least five blasts in the early morning.
'I was sleeping when loud blasts shook me awake,' said Abid, a resident who spoke on the condition that only his first name be used for fear of reprisal. Over the next 20 minutes, the detonations appeared to come closer, suggesting that multiple targets may have been struck.
Over four nights of conflict, each country has portrayed the other as the aggressor, trading blame for civilians coming under fire along the Line of Control that separates Indian and Pakistani-administered Kashmir, and for apparent drone and missile attacks.
New Delhi framed its strikes on Wednesday as retaliation for the April 22 rampage by gunmen in a tourist area in Pahalgam, in Indian-administered Kashmir, which killed 26 people – the deadliest assault on Indian civilians in more than 15 years.
Foreign ministers of the Group of Seven nations on Friday issued a call for de-escalation and said the two countries should 'engage in direct dialogue towards a peaceful outcome'.
On Friday, Pakistan's military said it had shot down a total of 77 drones in the conflict, while India's Defence Ministry said Pakistan targeted 36 locations, including civilian infrastructure, with up to 400 drones – many of which it claimed to have shot down. India said some of its soldiers had been killed, without providing further details.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
1News
6 days ago
- 1News
Ukraine destroys 40 military planes in drone attack inside Russia
A Ukrainian drone attack has destroyed more than 40 Russian planes deep in Russia's territory, a Ukrainian security official says, while Russia pounded Ukraine with missiles and drones a day before the two sides meet for a new round of direct talks in Istanbul. The official, who spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity to disclose operational details, said the attack took over a year and a half to execute and was personally supervised by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The operation saw drones transported in containers carried by trucks deep into Russian territory, he said. The drones reportedly hit 41 planes stationed at several airfields on Sunday afternoon, including A-50, Tu-95 and Tu-22M aircraft, the official said. Moscow has previously used Tupolev Tu-95 and Tu-22 long-range bombers to launch missiles at Ukraine, while A-50s are used to coordinate targets and detect air defences and guided missiles. Russia's Defence Ministry in a statement confirmed the attacks, which spanned five airfields. ADVERTISEMENT The FPV drones damaged aircraft and sparked fires on air bases in the Irkutsk region, more than 4000 kilometres from Ukraine, as well as Russia's northern Murmansk, it said. Strikes were repelled in the Amur region in Russia's Far East and in the western regions of Ivanovo and Ryazan, the ministry said. The attack came the same day as Zelensky said Ukraine will send a delegation to Istanbul for a new round of direct peace talks with Russia on Monday. In a statement on Telegram, Zelensky said that Defence Minister Rustem Umerov will lead the Ukrainian delegation. 'We are doing everything to protect our independence, our state and our people,' Zelensky said. Ukrainian officials had previously called on the Kremlin to provide a promised memorandum setting out its position on ending the war before the meeting takes place. Moscow had said it would share its memorandum during the talks. Russian strike hits an army unit Russia on Sunday launched the biggest number of drones — 472 — on Ukraine since the full-scale invasion in February 2022, Ukraine's air force said. ADVERTISEMENT Russian forces also launched seven missiles alongside the barrage of drones, said Yuriy Ignat, head of communications for the air force. Earlier Sunday, Ukraine's army said at least 12 Ukrainian service members were killed and more than 60 were injured in a Russian missile strike on an army training unit. The strike occurred at 12:50 p.m., the statement said, emphasising that no formations or mass gatherings of personnel were being held at the time. Ukrainian army commander Mykhailo Drapatyi later Sunday submitted his resignation following the attack. He was a respected commander whose leadership saw Ukraine regain land on the eastern front for the first time since Kyiv's 2022 counteroffensive. The training unit was located to the rear of the 1000-kilometre active front line, where Russian reconnaissance and strike drones are able to strike. Ukraine's forces lack troops and take extra precautions to avoid mass gatherings as the skies across the front line are saturated with Russian drones looking for targets. Northern pressure Russia's Ministry of Defence said Sunday that it had taken control of the village of Oleksiivka in Ukraine's northern Sumy region. Ukrainian authorities in Sumy ordered mandatory evacuations in 11 more settlements Saturday as Russian forces make steady gains in the area. Speaking Saturday, Ukraine's top army chief, Oleksandr Syrskyi, said that Russian forces were focusing their main offensive efforts on Pokrovsk, Toretsk and Lyman in the Donetsk region, as well as the Sumy border area.
Otago Daily Times
7 days ago
- Otago Daily Times
Russia, Ukraine step up the war on eve of peace talks
On the eve of peace talks, Ukraine and Russia sharply ramped up the war with one of the biggest drone battles of their conflict. A Russian highway bridge was blown up over a passenger train and an ambitious attack was carried out on nuclear-capable bombers deep in Siberia. After days of uncertainty over whether or not Ukraine would even attend, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Defence Minister Rustem Umerov would sit down with Russian officials at the second round of direct peace talks in Istanbul on Monday. The first round of the talks more than a week ago yielded the biggest prisoner exchange of the war - but no sense of any consensus on how to halt the fighting. Amid talk of peace, though, there was much war. At least seven people were killed and 69 injured when a highway bridge in Russia's Bryansk region, neighbouring Ukraine, was blown up over a passenger train heading to Moscow with 388 people on board. No-one has yet claimed responsibility. Ukraine attacked Russian nuclear-capable long-range bombers at a military base deep in Siberia on Sunday (local time), a Ukrainian intelligence official said, the first such attack so far from the front lines more than 4300km away. The official said the operation involved hiding explosive-laden drones inside the roofs of wooden sheds and loading them onto trucks that were driven to the perimeter of the air bases. A total of 41 Russian warplanes were hit, the official said. RUSSIA ACKNOWLEDGES AIR BASE ATTACKS, SAYS FIRES PUT OUT Ukraine did not tell the Trump administration about the attack in advance, Axios reporter Barak Ravid said on X, citing an unnamed Ukrainian official. Russia's Defence Ministry acknowledged on the Telegram messaging app that Ukraine had launched drone strikes against Russian military airfields across five regions on Sunday. It said the attacks repelled the assaults in all but two regions — Murmansk in the far north and Irkutsk in Siberia - where "the launch of FPV drones from an area in close proximity to airfields resulted in several aircraft catching fire". The fires were extinguished without casualties. Some individuals involved in the attacks had been detained, the ministry said. Russia launched 472 drones at Ukraine overnight, Ukraine's air force said, the highest nightly total of the war so far. Russia had also launched seven missiles, the air force said. Russia said it had advanced deeper into the Sumy region of Ukraine, and open source pro-Ukrainian maps showed Russia took 450sq km of Ukrainian land in May, its fastest monthly advance in at least six months. US President Donald Trump has demanded Russia and Ukraine make peace and he has threatened to walk away if they do not - potentially pushing responsibility for supporting Ukraine onto the shoulders of European powers - which have far less cash and much smaller stocks of weapons than the United States. According to Trump envoy Keith Kellogg, the two sides will in Turkey present their respective documents outlining their ideas for peace terms, though it is clear that after three years of intense war, Moscow and Kyiv remain far apart. Putin ordered tens of thousands of troops to invade Ukraine in February 2022 after eight years of fighting in eastern Ukraine between Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian troops. The United States says over 1.2 million people have been killed and injured in the war since 2022. Trump has called Putin "crazy" and berated Zelenskyy in public in the Oval Office, but the US president has also said that he thinks peace is achievable and that if Putin delays then he could impose tough sanctions on Russia. In June last year, Putin set out his opening terms for an immediate end to the war: Ukraine must drop its NATO ambitions and withdraw all of its troops from the entirety of the territory of four Ukrainian regions claimed and mostly controlled by Russia. Ukrainian negotiators in Istanbul will present to the Russian side a proposed roadmap for reaching a lasting peace settlement, according to a copy of the document seen by Reuters. According to the document, there will be no restrictions on Ukraine's military strength after a peace deal is struck, no international recognition of Russian sovereignty over parts of Ukraine taken by Moscow's forces, and reparations for Ukraine. The document also stated that the current location of the front line will be the starting point for negotiations about territory. Russia currently controls a little under one fifth of Ukraine, or about 113,100sq km, about the same size as the US state of Ohio.
Scoop
31-05-2025
- Scoop
Defend The Adivasis Of Central India. Ceasefire And Peace Talks Now
It is not just Palestine that is under siege. Central India is also embroiled in an all-out-war that is killing the Indigenous Adivasi people. Like Israel, the Indian state has also committed countless harrowing violations to the international humanitarian law – but toward its own people, in order to seize the mineral-rich land of the region for its neoliberal agenda. To open Central India to foreign investments and corporate plunder, the government launched its military campaign against Naxals (Maoist rebels). However, this campaign has mainly targeted the civilian Adivasi communities and their advocates. Recently, the government intensified its attacks through routine harassment, extrajudicial killings, mass sexual violence, illegal arrests and detention in security camps, and aerial bombings, especially in the region of Bastar, Chhattisgarh and the Karegatta Hills, Telangana. Many of the state-perpetrated killings are covered up as deaths from fake encounters. In Bastar alone, over 400 of these killings were reported since January 2024, which included elderly and children casualties. This year, hundreds of cases of rape, unlawful arrests of activists, and the burning of over 300 villages in Bastar have been documented. All this brutal violence is justified under the pretense of counter-insurgency, which has reinforced the land grabbing and forcible displacement of communities already legitimized by deceptive policies such as the Scheduled Tribes and Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act (FRA). The constitutional rights granted to Adivasis for self-governance are blatantly ignored and violated to favor exploitation of natural resources through the rapid expansion of infrastructure for intensive extractive industries, which in turn threaten the lives and livelihoods of the Adivasis, attack their food systems, and destroy the environment. The People's Coalition on Food Sovereignty expresses its grave concern over the situation, particularly the employment of state militarization that is pushing the Adivasi population into starvation and destitution. Moreover, we strongly condemn the violations to human rights and the international humanitarian law committed by the Indian state and its forces in the name of counter-insurgency to acquire Adivasi lands and plunder their communities' resources. We call out the India government for its war crimes, including the extrajudicial killings of Naxal combatants – even the General Secretary of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) – that have been seeking deescalation through their unilateral ceasefire declaration. We urge to heed the appeals for ceasefire and peace talks and immediately suspend the national and regional counter-insurgency programs behind Central India's militarization that are killing the Adivasis (such as Operation Kagar in Bastar and Operation Black Forest in Karegatta Hills). The root causes of armed conflict will never be addressed by the further escalation of wars and military offensives that only contribute to people's hunger and impoverishment. There would never be a need for the people to take up arms in the first place if their socio-economic demands and civil liberties – especially concerning the right to food and land – are met and pro-people development is prioritized over profit.
