India-Pakistan conflict intensifies into most expansive in decades

Tensions surge as both sides trade attack claims

India and Pakistan were engaged on Friday in their most expansive military conflict in decades, with widespread accounts of attacks within each country well beyond their disputed Kashmir border.

Pakistan has denied claims by India’s armed forces that “military stations” in Indian-administered Kashmir’s Jammu and Udhampur, and in Punjab state’s Pathankot, were targeted in drone and missile attacks. No casualties were reported.

Pakistan’s information minister says his country has engaged only in a “defensive response so far” to India’s attacks on his country, as Pakistan’s military said India launched attack drones into Pakistan on Thursday, killing at least two civilians.

At least 48 people have been reported killed so far – 32 of them in Pakistan – since India launched missiles on Wednesday that it said targeted “terrorist camps” in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir. Pakistan retaliated with a barrage of artillery strikes.

The clashes follow escalating tension between the two nuclear-armed countries since a deadly attack in Indian-administered Kashmir’s Pahalgam on April 22, which India blamed on Pakistan. Pakistan has denied any involvement.