India warns Pakistan attacks will get a “firm response” after trade fire
AFP staff worker
New Delhi (AFP) May 8, 2025
India warned on Thursday that any Pakistani military action would take a “very, very firm response” the day after New Delhi launched a missile strike in retaliation for the attack.
“Our response is targeted and measured. It is not our intention to escalate,” Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said in a speech to his visiting Iranian counterpart.
“But if a military attack was launched on us, there is no doubt that it will get a very, very firm response.”
Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif vowed to retaliate after launching a deadly missile strike on Wednesday morning, and gunfires escalated into shelling at the border in Kashmir for several days.
There were at least 45 deaths on both sides of the border following Wednesday’s violence, including children.
Jaishankar met Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who visited New Delhi a few days after his visit to Pakistan when Tehran attempted to mediate among nuclear-weapon neighbors.
In a statement he arrived in India, Araghchi said that “naturally to relieve tensions” between India and Pakistan is natural.
“We hope that all parties will limit to avoid escalation of tensions in the region,” Aragic said.
India-Pakistan trade fire after fatal escalation
Srinagar, India (AFP) May 8, 2025 – Indian and Pakistani soldiers exchanged gunfire in Kashmir in Kashmir, New Delhi said on Thursday that it was the worst violence between nuclear weapons competitors in two decades.
Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif vowed to retaliate after India launched a deadly missile strike on Wednesday morning, repeatedly escalating into artillery along the border.
In his speech to the country, Sharif said: “We will avenge the blood of these martyrs.”
India said it destroyed nine “terrorist camps” in Pakistan two weeks after Islamabad killed in New Delhi.
There were at least 45 deaths on both sides of the border following Wednesday’s violence, including children.
Islamabad said 31 civilians were killed by India’s strike and opened fire along the border.
New Delhi said Pakistan’s fire killed 13 civilians and a soldier.
Pakistan’s military also said five Indian jets collapsed on the border, but New Delhi has not responded to the claims.
A senior Indian security source who asked not to be named said three of its fighter jets had crashed in their home country.
– “Scream” –
According to the Pakistani military, India’s largest strike was the attack at an Islamic seminary near the Punjabi city of Bahawalpur, killing 13 people.
Madasar Choudhary, 29, described his sister seeing two children killed in Poonch on the Indian side of the Indian border on Wednesday.
“She saw two children running out of the neighbor’s house and screaming to let them get back inside,” Choudhury said.
“But shrapnel hit the kids- they ended up dead.”
Muhammad Riaz said he and his family were homeless after an Indian strike attacked Muzaffarabad, Pakistan’s main Kashmir city.
“There is no place to live,” he said. “Our relatives’ homes have no space. We are very frustrated and we have nowhere to go.”
On Wednesday night, Pakistan’s military spokesman Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry reported that in fact, in Kashmir, crossed the border of control – and said that the armed forces had been authorized to “defend themselves” in “selected time, place and method”.
Indian troops reported Thursday morning that fired at “small arms and artillery guns” at multiple locations overnight, adding that their soldiers “reacted proportionally” without providing more details.
India and Pakistan have fought several times since the end of violence in British rule in 1947, when colonial officers drew straight boundaries on maps to divide countries and thus divide communities.
The Muslim majority Kashmir, claimed by India and Pakistan, is a recurring flash point.
– “No sales” –
Indian Defense Minister Rajnath Singh said the operation was a “right to respond” to New Delhi’s “right to respond” because of last month’s attack on Pahargam tourists in Kashmir, when gunmen killed 26 people, mainly Hindu men.
New Delhi accused Pakistan-based group Lashkar-e-Taiba – an unspecified terrorist group that has carried out threats and diplomatic measures on the day.
India prepared for Pakistan’s threatening retaliation on Thursday.
The headline of the Indian newspaper reads: “The border areas are highly alert.” He added that Pakistan’s “India must be prepared for escalation”.
In the editorial, the Indian Express wrote: “There is no reason to believe that the Pakistani army was blamed for Indian air strikes”, adding that Indian military experts “recognize that Pakistan’s armed forces are not pushing”.
Both diplomats and world leaders have put pressure on both countries to withdraw from the brink.
“I want to see them stop,” U.S. President Donald Trump said Wednesday.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi met with his Indian counterpart Subrahmanyam Jaishankar on Thursday in New Delhi, a few days after his visit to Pakistan, in Tehran seeking mediation.
Analysts say they fully expect Pakistan’s military operations to “save the face” in their response to India.
“India has limited goals,” said Happymon Jacob, director of the New Delhi-based Strategic and Defense Research Think Tank Committee.
“Pakistan has limited goals to ensure it conducts a retaliatory strike to save the face domestically and internationally. So, this is likely to happen.”
Based on past conflicts, he believes that “it may end in several iterations of exchange of long-range gunfire or missiles toward each other’s territory.”
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