Latest news with #GibranNaiyyarPeshimam
Japan Today
10-05-2025
- Politics
- Japan Today
Pakistan summons its top nuclear group after launching offensive on India
Damaged vehicles are seen in the neighbourhood, following Pakistan's military operation against India, in Rehari, Jammu, May 10, 2025. REUTERS/Stringer By Gibran Naiyyar Peshimam and Ariba Shahid Pakistan said it called a meeting on Saturday of the top body that oversees its nuclear arsenal after it launched a military operation against India early in the morning, targeting multiple bases including a missile storage site in northern India. The Indian army said after the attacks that Pakistan was continuing its "blatant escalation" with drone strikes and using other munitions along India's western border, and that its "enemy designs" would be thwarted. Five civilians were killed in the attacks in the Jammu region of Indian Kashmir, regional police said. Diplomatic calls for de-escalation, including by the United States, intensified as the nuclear-armed neighbors ramped up their worst fighting in three decades. Pakistan said that, before its offensive, India had fired missiles at three air bases, including one close to the capital, Islamabad, but Pakistani air defenses intercepted most of them. Pakistan's military also said the prime minister had called a meeting of the National Command Authority, a top body of civilian and military officials that oversees decisions on its nuclear arsenal. Analysts and diplomats have long feared that conflict between the arch-rivals could escalate into the use of nuclear weapons, in one of the world's most dangerous and most populated nuclear flashpoint regions. Pakistan's planning minister Ahsan Iqbal said the escalation was a test for the international community. "We would hate to see that (nuclear) threshold being breached," he said. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio called Pakistan's Army Chief Asim Munir on Friday morning, according to the U.S. State Department. "He continued to urge both parties to find ways to de-escalate and offered U.S. assistance in starting constructive talks in order to avoid future conflicts," said State Department Spokesperson Tammy Bruce. Locked in a longstanding dispute over Kashmir, the two countries have engaged in daily clashes since Wednesday when India launched strikes inside Pakistan on what it called "terrorist infrastructure". Pakistan vowed to retaliate. The meeting of the National Command Authority signaled an alarming escalation, analysts said. "It is a soft nuclear signal but also well in line with Pakistan's nuclear doctrine of first use and realistically reflective of where we are on the escalation ladder - which is pretty high up, after multiple duels between both sides, and also lacking in precedent," said Asfandyar Mir, Senior Fellow for South Asia at the Stimson Center. An Indian army statement on X said multiple armed drones were spotted flying over the holy city of Amritsar in India's Punjab state and were destroyed by its defense units. Pakistan's planning minister said in a broadcast interview that it was not targeting civilians and would only target locations that had been used for action against Pakistan. The Indian defense and foreign ministries would jointly brief the media at 10:30 a.m., the foreign ministry said in an advisory to the media. Pakistan's information minister said in a post on social media site X that the military operation was named "Operation Bunyanun Marsoos". The term is taken from the Koran and means a firm, united structure. "BrahMos storage site has been taken out in general area Beas," Pakistan's military said in a message to journalists, adding that the Pathankot airfield in India's western Punjab state and Udhampur Air Force Station in Indian Kashmir were also hit. Sounds of explosions were reported in India's Srinagar and Jammu, where sirens sounded, a Reuters witness said. "India through its planes launched air-to-surface missiles ... Nur Khan base, Mureed base and Shorkot base were made targets," Pakistan military spokesman Lieutenant General Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry said in a late-night televised statement. The chief minister of Indian Kashmir Omar Abdullah said in a statement a local administration official had been killed by shelling in Rajouri, near the line of control that divides the contested region. One of the three air bases that Pakistan said were targeted by India is in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, just outside the capital Islamabad. The other two are in Pakistan's eastern province of Punjab, which borders India. The Pakistani military spokesman said only a few missiles made it past air defenses, and those did not hit any "air assets", according to initial damage assessments. India has said its strikes on Wednesday, which started the latest clashes between the countries, were in retaliation for a deadly attack on Hindu tourists in Indian Kashmir last month. Pakistan denied India's accusations that it was involved in the tourist attack. Since Wednesday, the two countries have exchanged cross-border fire and shelling, and sent drones and missiles into each other's airspace. Much of the fighting on Friday was in Indian Kashmir and states bordering Pakistan. India said it shot down Pakistani drones. The Group of Seven countries on Friday urged maximum restraint and called on the two countries to engage in direct dialogue. The United Kingdom's High Commissioner to Pakistan, Jane Marriott, said in a statement on social media platform X that they were monitoring the developments closely. Sounds of explosions were also heard in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore and the northwestern city of Peshawar, as the fighting threatened to spread. At least 48 people have been killed since Wednesday, according to casualty estimates on both sides of the border that have not been independently verified. © Thomson Reuters 2025.
Ya Libnan
10-05-2025
- Politics
- Ya Libnan
Pakistan launched military offensive against India
By Gibran Naiyyar Peshimam and Ariba Shahid Smoke rises after a blast on the outskirts of Jammu city, May 10, 2025. Reuters/Adnan Abidi ISLAMABAD/NEW DELHI – Pakistan said it launched a military operation against India early on Saturday, targeting multiple bases including a missile storage site in northern India as the neighbours extended their worst fighting in nearly three decades. Pakistan's offensive came shortly after it said India had fired missiles at three air bases earlier on Saturday, including one close to the capital, Islamabad, but Pakistani air defences intercepted most of them. Locked in a longstanding dispute over Kashmir, the two countries have engaged in daily clashes since Wednesday when India launched strikes inside Pakistan on what it called militant bases. Pakistan vowed to retaliate. 'BrahMos storage site has been taken out in the general area Beas,' Pakistan's military said in a message to journalists, adding that the Pathankot Airfield in India's western Punjab state and Udhampur Air Force Station in Indian Kashmir were also hit. India's defence and foreign ministries did not immediately respond to a request for comment outside regular business hours. India's military was expected to brief the media shortly, the Ministry of Defence said. Pakistan's information minister said in a post on social media site X that the military operation was named 'Operation Bunyanun Marsoos'. The term is taken from the Koran that means a firm, united structure. Sounds of explosions were reported in India's Srinagar and Jammu, where sirens were sounded, a Reuters witness said. 'India through its planes, launched air-to-surface missiles … Nur Khan base, Mureed base and Shorkot base were made targets,' Pakistan military spokesman Lieutenant General Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry said in a late-night televised statement. One of the air bases is in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, just outside the capital Islamabad, and the other two are in Pakistan's eastern province of Punjab, which borders India. The Pakistani military spokesman said only a few missiles made it past air defences, and those did not hit any 'air assets', according to initial damage assessments. India, Pakistan accuse each other of attacks as hostilities rise India has said its strikes on Wednesday, which kicked off the clashes between the countries, were in retaliation for a deadly attack on Hindu tourists in Indian Kashmir last month. Pakistan denied India's accusations that it was involved in the tourist attack. Since Wednesday, the two countries have exchanged cross-border fire and shelling, and sent drones and missiles into each other's airspace. Much of the fighting on Friday was in Indian Kashmir and neighbouring Indian states. India said it shot down Pakistani drones. Sounds of explosions were also heard in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore and the northwestern city of Peshawar, as the fighting threatened to spread. At least 48 people have been killed since Wednesday, according to casualty estimates on both sides of the border that have not been independently verified. (Reuters)
Yahoo
07-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Reduced to rubble: India strikes alleged headquarters of militant groups in Pakistan's heartland
By Gibran Naiyyar Peshimam and Mubasher Bukhari MURIDKE, Pakistan (Reuters) - Video footage from the early hours of Wednesday shows a bright flash from the residential Islamic seminary outside Bahawalpur in central Pakistan as India attacked its neighbour in response to the killing of Indian tourists in Kashmir. The seminary was emptied of its students in recent days as speculation grew that would be targeted by India, but the family of Masood Azhar, founder of the Jaish-e-Mohammed Islamist militant group, was still there, according to the group. Ten of Azhar's relatives were among 13 people killed in the strike, including women and children, the Pakistani military said. Thousands of people turned out for their funerals at a sports stadium later in the day, shouting "Allah Akbar", or God is Great, and other religious chants. "(Indian Prime Minister Narendra) Modi's brutality has broken all norms," the group said in a statement. "The grief and shock are indescribable". It said that five of those killed were children and the others included Azhar's sister and her husband. It did not respond to a request for comment on why the family was still at the site. Azhar, who has not been seen for years, and his brother, Abdul Rauf Asghar, deputy head of the group, did not appear to have attended the funeral prayers. The road to the site was cordoned off after the strike. Further north, around half an hour after midnight, four Indian missiles hit a sprawling complex in Muridke over six minutes, a local government official said. The attack demolished a mosque and adjacent administration building and buried three people in the rubble. A sign outside describes the site as a government health and educational complex, but India says it is associated with militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). Delhi and Washington blame LeT for the 2008 attack on the Indian city of Mumbai that killed more than 160 people. LeT, which has has denied responsibility for that attack, is banned. The attack left other buildings in the complex untouched. A local official said that normally there were up to 3,500 staff and students at the site, but almost everyone had been evacuated in recent days as they feared it would become a target. Hafiz Saeed, leader of LeT and its successor organizations, is in a Pakistani jail since being convicted in 2020, on terror financing charges. He says his network, which spans 300 seminaries and schools, hospitals, a publishing house and ambulance services, has no ties to militant groups. Delhi said it had conducted pinpoint strikes on the two headquarters of its militant adversaries, part of what it said were nine "terrorist camps" targeted. "Over the last three decades Pakistan has systematically built terror infrastructure," it said in a briefing on the attacks. Pakistan said India had hit six sites, killing 26 people and wounding 46, all "innocent civilians". Officials and experts said India's attack on its neighbour, its most significant in decades, fulfilled a long-cherished goal, but Islamabad warned that it would hit back. The conflict between India and Pakistan has been confined in recent decades mostly to the disputed mountainous region of Kashmir. But the air strikes in the towns of Bahawalpur and Muridke were seen in Islamabad as a major escalation. India said seven of its targets were used by Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed, both Islamist groups designated "terrorist" organisations by the U.N. Security Council. India launched the attacks in response to the killing of 26 people, mostly tourists in Indian Kashmir last month. Jaish says that it carries out educational and charity work in Pakistan and its militant activities are only in India. Delhi says that it runs training camps in Pakistan, as well as indoctrination schools, and that it launches militants into India. For decades Hindu-majority India has accused Pakistan of supporting Islamist militants in attacks on Indian interests, especially in Kashmir. Pakistan denies such support and in turn accuses India of supporting separatist rebels in Pakistan, which New Delhi denies. (Writing by Saeed Shah; editing by Philippa Fletcher)
Yahoo
07-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Factbox-Who are Pakistan-based LeT and JeM groups targeted by Indian strikes?
By Krishna N. Das and Gibran Naiyyar Peshimam NEW DELHI/ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - India said on Wednesday it hit nine sites in Pakistan "from where terrorist attacks against India have been planned and directed", following last month's deadly attack in Kashmir. The nuclear-armed neighbours have fought two wars since independence from colonial ruler Britain in 1947 over the mainly Muslim region that both rule in part, while claiming in full. New Delhi blamed last month's attack in a scenic Himalayan meadow on a group linked to Lashkar-e-Taiba, an Islamist militant outfit based in Pakistan. Pakistan, which denies any involvement in the Kashmir attack, said the Indian strikes killed 26 civilians and its forces downed five Indian fighter jets. It vowed to respond "to this aggression at a time, place, and means of our own choice". India said seven of its targets were used by Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed, both Islamist groups designated "terrorist" organisations by the U.N. Security Council. For decades Hindu-majority India has accused Pakistan of supporting Islamist militants in attacks on Indian interests, especially in Kashmir. Pakistan denies such support and in turn accuses India of supporting separatist rebels in Pakistan, which New Delhi denies. LASHKAR-E-TAIBA Lashkar-e-Taiba, or the "army of the pure", is based in Pakistan's most populous province of Punjab and has long focused on fighting Indian rule in Kashmir. The U.N. Security Council says it has conducted "numerous terrorist operations" against military and civilian targets since 1993, including November 2008 attacks in India's commercial capital of Mumbai that killed 166. Hafiz Saeed, who founded LeT around 1990, has denied any role in the attack. The United Nations says LeT has also been implicated in attacks on Mumbai commuter trains in July 2006 and a December 2001 attack on India's parliament. Muridke, just outside Punjab's capital of Lahore, is believed to be home to the sprawling 200-acre (81-hectare)headquarters of organisations affiliated with LeT. India says it struck Muridke's Markaz Taiba, a site about 25 km (16 miles) from the border, where the Mumbai attackers had been trained. The term Markaz means headquarters. Pakistan says the group has been banned and neutralised. Arrested in 2019, Saeed was convicted of numerous terrorism financing charges and is serving a 31-year jail term. Critics say the group, rebranded in the guise of a charity, maintains a strong network in the region. JAISH-E-MOHAMMAD Also based in Punjab is Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), or Army of the Prophet Mohammad, founded by Masood Azhar on his release from prison in India in 1999. The deal was an exchange for 155 hostages held on an Indian Airlines flight hijacked to Afghanistan's southern city of Kandahar, the U.N. Security Council has said. Pakistan banned the group in 2002 after it, along with LeT, was blamed for the 2001 attack on India's parliament. The group had links with al Qaeda, founded by Osama bin Laden, and the Taliban, the U.N. Security Council has said. JeM is believed to be based in Pakistan's central city of Bahawalpur, also in Punjab. It has claimed responsibility for numerous suicide bombings in Kashmir, where India has battled an armed insurgency since the late 1980s, though violence has abated in recent years. India said it attacked Bahawalpur's Markaz Subhan Allah, which it called JeM's headquarters, located about 100 km (62 miles) from the border. Despite Pakistan's 2002 ban on JeM, U.S. and Indian authorities say it still operates openly there. Azhar has disappeared from the public eye except for sporadic reports of his presence close to the city, where he runs a religious institution. (Reporting by Krishna N. Das in New Delhi and Gibran Naiyyar Peshimam in Islambad; Additional reporting by Sarita Chaganti Singh and Shivam Patel in New Delhi; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
Yahoo
06-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
UN Security Council urges India-Pakistan talks on Kashmir, Islamabad says
By Gibran Naiyyar Peshimam and Shivam Patel ISLAMABAD/NEW DELHI (Reuters) - The United Nations Security Council has urged India and Pakistan to ease tension and avoid military conflict, Pakistan said on Tuesday, as hostilities between the nuclear-armed rivals surge after a deadly attack on tourists in disputed Kashmir. Council members were briefed on the situation in the region and told of intelligence indicating an "imminent threat" of action by India, the South Asian nation's foreign ministry said, referring to the council's meeting on Monday in New York. "They called for dialogue and diplomacy to diffuse tension and avoid military confrontation ... and to peacefully resolve issues," the ministry said in a statement. India's foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the meeting, which had been sought by Islamabad. The two sides have shored up defences as ties plummeted after the April 22 attack that targeted Hindu tourists, killing 26. India accused Pakistan of involvement, saying two of the three suspected attackers were Pakistani nationals. Islamabad has denied the accusation but says it is fully prepared to defend itself in case of attack, prompting world powers to call for a calming of tension. Pakistan has held two missile tests in three days and India unveiled plans for civil defence drills in several states on Tuesday, from sounding air raid sirens to evacuation plans. Pakistan is currently a non-permanent member of the Security Council. India is not, but New Delhi has been in talks with council members ahead of Monday's meeting. An Indian source familiar with the discussion said many members expressed concern that Pakistan's missile tests and nuclear rhetoric were "escalatory" factors. "Pakistan's efforts to internationalise the situation also failed," said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "They were advised to sort out the issues bilaterally with India." On Monday, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres emphasised the need to avoid a military confrontation that could "easily spin out of control", adding, "Now is the time for maximum restraint, and stepping back from the brink." The rivals announced a slew of measures against each other after the violence, from suspending trade and a key water treaty to closing their airspace and reducing embassy staff. Rating agency Moody's has warned the standoff could weigh on Pakistan's $350-billion economy, which is still recovering from an economic crisis that pushed it to the brink of default on external debt obligations in 2023. Higher defence spending could also weigh on India's fiscal strength and slow its fiscal consolidation, it added. Kashmir has been at the heart of the hostility between India and Pakistan for decades, and India has previously also accused Pakistan of aiding Islamist separatists battling security forces in its part of the territory. Islamabad denies the accusation. (Writing by Sakshi Dayal; Editing by YP Rajesh and Clarence Fernandez)
