How US pulled India and Pakistan back from all-out war

Telegraph

10-05-2025

In a conflict characterised by a flood of misinformation, Muhammad Saleem knew something was really happening when he saw a missile pass over the roof of his home on Thursday night.
Seconds later, the Indian projectile smashed into a Pakistani air force base in Rawalpindi, exploding in flames and igniting the most dangerous round of fighting yet between the two nuclear-armed neighbours.
At around 3am local time, Indian jets launched missiles at Nur Khan and two more air bases, Murid and Rafiqi, with the defence ministry citing an earlier wave of Pakistani attacks in justification. Footage of blasts lighting up the night surged across Pakistani social media.
On the ground in Rawalpindi, the garrison city that houses the headquarters of the Pakistani armed forces, crowds poured onto the street chanting 'Pakistan Zindabad', or 'victory to Pakistan'.
'I saw the missile from the top of my house,' Mr Saleem, who is in his late 40s, told The Telegraph. 'There were several explosions.'
Like dozens of others, he headed towards the Nur Khan air base, originally built by the RAF and used in the Second World War. 'God is great,' shouted the nervous residents.
With flames still burning, 'we saw a missile had hit the base area', Mr Saleem said.
At a 3.30am press conference, Lt Gen Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, the spokesman for Pakistan's army, accused India of 'pushing the whole region towards a dangerous war with its madness'.
Pakistan's air defences had shot down all but a few Indian missiles which 'sneaked in' but did not cause any damage, he claimed. Nur Khan hosts transport and signals-intelligence-collecting aircraft, rather than fighter jets.
Shaky phone camera footage from a rooftop hundreds of yards away appeared to show something erupting in flames on impact.
Ending his press conference, Mr Chaudhry issued a warning: 'India must now prepare for Pakistan's response.'
After little more than an hour, Pakistani air force jets took off for the launch of Operation 'Bunyam um-Marsoos', a phrase taken from the Koran that translates as 'unbreakable wall of lead'.
With several local Pakistani journalists briefed that the operation was underway before its targets were known, there was a moment when the region felt flung into the air – with where, and how hard it would come down, unclear.
Islamabad issued a notice to airmen announcing the total closure of its airspace from 3.15am until noon on Saturday.
'Targets are acquired and locked,' one popular anonymous X account wrote, promising strikes that would 'send chills down their spines, instilling dread in seven generations'.
The impact, AirlinePilotmax claimed, would 'reshape India's ideological core for decades'.
Then the missiles hit. At 5.52am, state-run Pakistani media reported that the Pakistani Air Force (PAF) had struck air bases in Pathankot, Udhampur and a storage site in the Beas region for the long-range, supersonic Brahmos missile.
An 'eye for an eye', said a statement from Pakistan's military.
In Srinagar, the main city in Indian-controlled Kashmir, residents took shelter from pounding explosions on their lower floors. 'Two loud blasts shook the ground. Dust filled the air. I thought jets had begun bombing the airport,' said Wasim Adhmad.
'We're used to gunfire and mines, but this is something else. It feels like death in the air.'
Later, PTV claimed that an Indian S-400 air defence missile system, worth roughly $1 billion, had also been destroyed – but the report was swiftly denied by New Delhi.
There were a few minutes to take stock; the damage looked more like tit-for-tat than armageddon. Both sides could claim wins. Civilian casualty numbers were not being bandied around.
At 7am, Ishaq Dar, Pakistan's foreign minister, was making conciliatory comments in an interview with Geo News, a local TV channel. 'If they stop, so will we,' he said. Khawaja Asif, the defence minister, denied reports of an urgent meeting of Pakistan's National Command Authority (NCA), which oversees Islamabad's nuclear arsenal.
In New Delhi, there were echoes. India's armed forces had given a 'befitting reply' to Pakistani strikes on schools and health facilities at India's air bases in Kashmir, said Colonel Sophia Qureshi.
'All hostile actions have been effectively countered and responded to appropriately,' added Wing Commander Vyomika Singh.
Outside of Kashmir, the last time India and Pakistan targeted each other's military facilities with this level of ferocity came in the 1971 war, which ended with Islamabad's defeat and the breakaway formation of Bangladesh.
Then, neither side possessed nuclear weapons. It may have been the prospect of an all-out war between two nations capable of destroying entire cities at the push of a button which roused Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, to personally intervene and call for calm.
Under Donald Trump, Washington had largely stood aside as tensions rose. JD Vance, the vice-president, said the conflict was 'fundamentally none of our business'. Mr Trump had called the hostilities little more than 'a shame', adding: 'I get along with both, I know both very well, and I want to see them work it out.'
Indian diplomats told The Telegraph there had not been the familiar descent of US officials on New Delhi and Islamabad, as there had been in previous rounds of fighting.
Mr Rubio spoke with Dr S Jaishankar, India's foreign minister, as well as Mr Dar and Asim Munir, the head of the Pakistani army, who is the most powerful person in the country.
According to a statement from the state department, Mr Rubio offered Mr Munir US assistance in starting 'constructive talks' towards peace. As so often happens, a United States seeking to disentangle itself from foreign conflicts appeared to be pulled back into one.
On Saturday afternoon, Narendra Modi, the Indian prime minister, held a cabinet meeting where he sought to lay down a new red line in the region. Any terror attack on India would be considered an 'act of war' by Pakistan, government sources told the Times of India.
For too long, Mr Modi and many Indians feel, the country has passively put up with massacres on its territory. Islamabad has failed to root out terrorists, they say – indeed at times it has indulged them.
In the Pahalgam attack in Indian-controlled Kashmir last month, gunmen asked victims their religion before executing any Hindus. 'Tell your government. Tell Modi what we did,' one attacker told a woman after shooting her husband in the head at point-blank range.
Mr Modi, a thoroughbred Hindu nationalist, promised to 'pursue [the terrorists] to the end of the earth'. Pakistan's fervent denials of any backing for the attack did not convince him, nor critics suggesting he should loosen repression of the largely Muslim population in Kashmir.
With his speech to cabinet on Saturday, the prime minister both appeared to be drawing a line under the fighting ignited by the Pahalgam attack, and threatening a far more violent encore should it ever be repeated.
It appeared that America's late-night return to pulling strings in foreign conflicts had paid off.
At 5pm local time (8am in Washington), Mr Trump surprised the world by being the first to announce the agreement of a full ceasefire.
The president, who had appeared disinterested, could claim to be a peacemaker. Few doubt such services will be needed again before long.