In the early hours of Wednesday, May 7 (local time), India’s army launched “Operation Sindoor,” firing a series of missiles at nine locations described by New Delhi as “terrorist infrastructure” inside Pakistan territory and Pakistan-administered Kashmir. The strikes – which killed 31 people, including women and children, and injured 46 others – triggered a swift response from Islamabad, which condemned the attack as an “act of war” and vowed a “befitting reply.” Pakistan claims the missiles targeted civilian sites, including two mosques, and says it downed five Indian planes in its counterattack. Indian sources report that at least 11 people were killed in Pakistan’s retaliation.
This marks the most serious escalation between the two nuclear-armed neighbors in over two decades. Following India’s attack, intense shelling resumed along the Line of Control (LoC), the de facto border separating Indian- and Pakistan-administered Kashmir. The violence comes just weeks after a deadly assault on 26 tourists – almost all of them Indian – on the Indian side of the disputed Kashmir region, which is controlled in part by both countries but claimed in full by each. The attack sparked widespread calls in India for an “Israel-like” retaliation, voiced by prominent commentators and sections of the public, according to Genocide Watch.
On April 22, terrorists attacked a group of tourists at a scenic site near the town of Pahalgam in Indian-administered Kashmir, killing 26 people. According to reports, the assailants appeared to select victims based on religion, with nearly all of the dead identified as Hindu men. New Delhi immediately blamed Pakistan for the assault, a charge Islamabad firmly denied. The attack was claimed by the Resistance Front, considered an offshoot of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba. The massacre struck a sensitive chord in India, where some of the public opinion, Narendra Modi’s hyper-nationalist government, and the media all called for “revenge” on Pakistan-sponsored terrorism.
Attacks by Pakistan-supported terrorist groups are not new in Kashmir. But the one in Pahalgam last month was the largest against tourists ever since the start of militancy in the 1990s. Last Sunday, the outlet Indian Express quoted an anonymous Indian government source warning that retaliation was imminent. A few days later, Pakistan’s information minister claimed to have credible intelligence that India was preparing military action. Shortly after, India launched Operation Sindoor – named after the vermillion traditionally applied by married Hindu women on the parting of their hair, in a symbolic reference to the wives widowed in the Pahalgam killings.
The strikes were widely celebrated across India as a blow to its nuclear-armed archrival, but were quickly followed by disinformation campaigns in both countries.
“Escalation between India and Pakistan has already reached a larger scale than during the last major crisis in 2019, with potentially dire consequences. The international community should urgently call for restraint and de-escalation on both sides. Major powers, including the US, should exert sustained pressure on both New Delhi and Islamabad to initiate back-channel talks and prevent further tit-for-tat,” says Praveen Donthi, the International Crisis Group’s Senior Analyst for India, reached by Reset DOC. “Domestic emotions are high on both sides, fueling the danger of further escalation. India and Pakistan should choose diplomacy, as any further military action carries unacceptable risks. As a starting point, both sides should stop ceasefire violations along the border,” he adds.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for maximum restraint from both sides. “The Secretary-General is very concerned about the Indian military operations across the Line of Control and the international border,” said his spokesperson. “He calls for maximum military restraint from both countries. The world cannot afford a military confrontation between India and Pakistan.”
United States President Donald Trump called the clashes “a shame” and expressed hope for a quick de-escalation. Yet, the office of Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif announced that the country’s armed forces have been authorized to undertake “corresponding actions” in response to India’s strikes.
Following the terrorist attack in Pahalgam, Modi’s Kashmir gamble has been shattered, according to Avinash Mohananey, who believes the attack exposed critical security lapses. “The biggest embarrassment for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is the failure of its narrative that terrorism in Jammu & Kashmir had been decimated following the abrogation of Articles 370 and 35A of the constitution in August 2019,” he wrote. “Among its political miscalculations, the BJP also likely underestimated the mischief potential of Pakistan and over-relied on continued US support to tame its hostile neighbor.” In summer 2019, India revoked the constitutional provisions that granted a degree of autonomy to Jammu & Kashmir – the country’s only Muslim-majority state –downgrading it to a union territory under direct central administration.
Since the abrogation of Article 370 and 35A, New Delhi has claimed that “normalcy” has returned to the region and heavily promoted tourism and the transfer of population from other parts of India – moves that have sparked fears of an engineered demographic shift. For more than three decades, the Indian-administered side of Kashmir has been gripped by a separatist insurgency that has legitimized the oppressive presence of Indian military and paramilitary forces in what is considered the most militarized region in the world. In its effort to crush the armed insurgency and what it defines as Pakistan-sponsored terrorism, the Indian government has, over the past 30 years, put the valley under a de facto occupation, intensified further after the 2019 coup.
Before launching its May 7 military action, India had already taken a series of punitive measures against Pakistan in the aftermath of the Pahalgam attack. New Delhi suspended all imports from Islamabad, closed the countries’ only land border, and unilaterally declared that the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) – a 1960 water management agreement brokered by the World Bank – would be held in abeyance until Pakistan ceased its alleged support for cross-border terrorism. The move to weaponize control of the Indus basin was met with alarm in Islamabad. In response, Pakistan announced its intention to suspend the Simla Agreement, which has governed bilateral relations since the 1970s. Islamabad warned that any Indian attempt to divert water intended for Pakistan under the IWT would be considered an “act of war.” Military confrontation followed shortly thereafter.
“Failing to take military action would have been politically costly for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, which prides itself on its tough-on-terror position and faced domestic pressure to respond with muscle given the brutality of the Pahalgam attack”, wrote Michael Kugelman, director of the South Asia Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center. The international community hopes for a quick resolution of the latest stand-off of a decades-long dispute, whereas a full-scale war between the two nuclear neighbors is not affordable internationally nor viable for both the countries involved. The hope is, like in the last crisis in 2019, that after the showdown the two sides smoothly step back from the brink of war.
Cover photo: People walk through the debris of a demolished house related to the family of Ashif Sheikh, who is suspected of involvement in the Pahalgam tourist attack, in Monghama village of Tral, south of Srinagar, in Indian-administered Kashmir, on April 25, 2025. (Photo by Habib Naqash / AFP)
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