The Indian-Pakistan Conflict and the Trump-Indian War on Nuclear Forces: A Viewpoint from a Worldview Point of View
An Indian military officer said in a presentation that India sent drones to four places in Pakistan in response to what she called an “escalation” by its rival. The area from the desert town of Jaisalmer in northwest India to the mountains of Jammu and Kashmir that have not been involved in a conflict for decades is being targeted by Pakistan’s drones.
Vance spoke on Fox News late Thursday, in response to a question about if the Trump administration was worried about nuclear conflict. We can’t control these countries, we want this to de-escalate as quickly as possible.
“What we can do is try to encourage these folks to de-escalate a little bit, but we’re not going to get involved in the middle of a war that’s fundamentally none of our business and has nothing to do with America’s ability to control it.”
State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said Rubio continued to urge both parties to “find ways to deescalate and offered U.S. assistance in starting constructive talks” in order to avoid future conflicts.
“This might embolden both sides, I think,” said Praveen Donthy, an India analyst for the International Crisis Group. He said the escalation between India and Pakistan has been “breaching a new threshold every day, and we don’t know when it is going to stop.”
Vance’s comments signaled a more hands-off foreign policy, said Arifa Noor, a columnist for the liberal newspaper Dawn. Washington worked to dial down tensions during previous escalations.
The problem, she said, is “I do not think that there is another power that can step into this vacuum” even as the two countries had long relied on the U.S. for “stepping in and talking the two countries off the ledge.” Now more than ever, she described them as “two nuclear powers that are inherently in a very unstable situation.”
On April 22, an attack at a popular tourist site in India-controlled Kashmir left 26 civilians dead, mostly Hindu Indian tourists. New Delhi has blamed Pakistan for backing the assault, an accusation Islamabad rejects.
Overnight Wednesday, India launched missile strikes across Pakistan, in what it said was retaliation. Pakistan said it shot down five Indian aircraft. The two sides have traded barbs since that time.
There were at least two projectiles that came down near a military cantonment in Pakistan on Friday. Residents filmed one careering to the ground, spinning across a field while emitting plumes of smoke as young men dashed out of the way. Two residents independently described the incident to NPR, but both requested anonymity because they did not want to anger Pakistani authorities, which have not commented on the incident.
“I witnessed dozens of fireballs in the sky”, said Gowher Ahmad, 43, of Jammu city. Ahmad said he was afraid of the night.
A note from a Kashmiri preacher in Srinagar: “The explosions wake my kids up and they cry, and then they go home,” said Mohammed Yasin
Jaspreet Kaur, from the border village of Ajote, said most of the 10,000 residents had fled. She said that the rest of them were trapped in the basement of a three-story building. Karamat Hussain said many residents couldn’t move because they had to care for their animals.
India seems to be cracking down more intently on critics as violence continues. Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, a prominent Kashmiri preacher who advocates independence for the territory, said on X that he was not allowed to attend communal Muslim Friday prayers in Indian-held Kashmir. He shared a video of his previous Friday sermon, and wrote, “I urge both the countries to urgently de-escalate and not to tread on this dangerous path, which can only lead to destruction.”
The social media network X said it had received “executive orders” from the indian government to block more than 8000 accounts including news organizations. Those blocked appeared to include Anuradha Bhasin, a prominent Kashmir-based journalist, and The Wire, an independent news site based in New Delhi. Indian authorities were silent on requests for comment.
Srinagar appeared calm early Saturday but some residents in neighborhoods close to the city’s airport, which is also an air base, said they were rattled by the explosions and booming sound of fighter jets.
The explosions woke my kids up and scared them off of their sleep. They started crying,” said Srinagar resident Mohammed Yasin, adding he heard at least two explosions.
Lahorean: “Retaliation underway”: Pakistani military fires attack on an air base in Rawalpindi
Praveen Donthi, a senior analyst with the International Crisis Group for India, said the two countries were at war even if they had not yet labelled it as one.
“It’s become a remorseless race for military one-upmanship with no apparent strategic end goals from either side,” said Donthi. Finding an off- ramp is going to be a challenge with more civilian casualties on both sides.
The Indian army said late Friday that drones were sighted in 26 locations across many areas in Indian states bordering Pakistan and Indian-controlled Kashmir, including Srinagar. It said the drones were tracked and engaged.
In Pakistan, the civil aviation authority shut the country’s airports for all flight operations and people in major cities were seen chanting slogans supporting the armed forces.
The Group of Seven nations, or G7, urged “maximum restraint” from India and Pakistan. Friday it warned that there is a serious threat to regional stability.
The Pakistan military said that it used missiles to target the Indian missile storage facility in Pathankot. There was no way to independently verify all the actions attributed to Pakistan or India.
Army spokesman, Lt. Gen. Ahmad Sharif, said Pakistan’s air force assets were safe following the Indian strikes, adding that some of the Indian missiles also hit India’s eastern Punjab.
State-run Pakistan Television reported that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has convened a meeting of the National Command Authority, the body responsible for overseeing the country’s missile program and other strategic assets.
The call for calm came ahead of the missile strikes, which targeted the air base in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, near the capital, along with the Murid base and Rafiqui base in the eastern Punjab province.
There was no media access to the air base where the strike took place in Rawalpindi, a densely populated city with no immediate reports of residents hearing or seeing the strike.
What have we learned about the retaliation of Pakistan against the Islamic regime? — A Jammu and Srinagar residents’ perspective
Following the announcement of Pakistani retaliation, residents in Indian controlled Kashmir heard loud explosions at a number of locations, including the two big cities of Srinagar and Jammu.
“Explosions that we are hearing today are different from the ones we heard the last two nights during drone attacks,” said Shesh Paul Vaid, the region’s former top police official and Jammu resident. “It looks like a war here.”
