Pakistani officials vowed to retaliate for India’s “Operation Sindoor” strikes against alleged terrorist camps on Tuesday night, while India insisted its actions were “measured, non-escalatory, proportionate, and responsible.”
The Indian Army said it launched “precision strikes” against four targets in Pakistan, plus five on the Pakistani side of the disputed Kashmir region.
The Indian Defense Ministry described these targets as “terrorist hideouts” belonging to three groups that could be linked to the savage April 22 terrorist attack on the tourist haven of Pahalgam in Indian Kashmir.
“We are living up to the commitment that those responsible for this attack will be held accountable,” the Defense Ministry said.
The name of the operation, sindoor, was taken from a red cosmetic powder used in traditional Indian weddings — a reference to the innocent honeymooning tourists who were murdered in Pahalgam.
India released a detailed description of the nine sites it attacked and its rationale for choosing each one. The sites were allegedly controlled by three different terrorist organization: Jaish-e-Mohammed (JM), Hizbul Mujahideen (HM), and the prime suspect in the Pahalgam massacre, Lashkar-e-Taiba (LT).
In response to Pakistan’s complaint that some of India’s bombs struck mosques, India confirmed that it targeted mosques and madrassas (Islamic religious schools) that were headquarters for “training and indoctrination” by the terrorist groups. The Indian government pointed out that one of the madrassas used as a training camp by LT was funded by Osama bin Laden, the late founder of al-Qaeda and mastermind of the 9/11 attack on America.
Some of India’s targets seemed chosen to make the point that JM, HM, LT, and other terrorist groups are operating openly in Pakistan, with either the indulgence or active support of the government. A few of the targeted facilities were remote terrorist camps hidden in inaccessible terrain, but others were obvious and located near major roads. All of them were large, capable of training hundreds of militants at a time.
The Indian Express quoted officials who said India wanted Operation Sindoor to be seen not just as retaliation for the Pahalgam attack, but as India’s response to escalating terrorism originating from Pakistan since 2001 — a significant year for terrorism both in India and America because a squad of gunmen attacked the Indian Parliament in December 2001.
India has long blamed the Pakistani government for orchestrating the Parliament attack carried out by gunmen from Jaish-e-Mohammed. The residence of JM founder Mazood Azhar, allegedly the mastermind of the 2001 Parliament attack, was one of India’s targets on Tuesday night. Azhar survived the attack, but claimed that ten members of his family were killed.
Indian government sources told the Indian Express that another objective of Operation Sindoor was to puncture Pakistan’s bluster about its supposedly airtight defenses and formidable retaliatory capability, while carefully distinguishing between “terrorist infrastructure” and “Pakistan military targets” to avoid escalation.
At a press conference on Wednesday, Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri stated as a fact that “Pakistani and Pakistan-trained terrorists belonging to the Lashkar-e-Taiba” perpetrated the April 22 attack.
“The attack in Pahalgam was marked by extreme barbarity, with the victims mostly killed with headshots from close range and in front of their families. Family members were deliberately traumatized through the manner of the killing, accompanied by the exhortation that they should take back the message,” he noted.
Misri said the terrorist attack was “clearly driven by the objective of undermining the normalcy returning to Jammu and Kashmir,” creating “fertile ground for continued cross-border terrorism from Pakistan.” He also accused the terrorists and their patrons of trying to drive a wedge between India’s Hindus and Muslims.
“Pakistan also has a well-deserved reputation as a haven for terrorists from around the world, with internationally proscribed terrorists enjoying impunity there. In addition, Pakistan has been known to willfully mislead the world and international forums, such as the Financial Action Task Force, on this issue,” Misri said.
“Despite a fortnight having passed since the attacks, there has been no demonstrable step from Pakistan to take action against the terrorist infrastructure on its territory or on territory under its control. Instead, all it has indulged in are denials and allegations,” he charged.
Misri insisted that India’s actions were consistent with the U.N. Security Council’s resolution on the April 22 attack, which stressed “the need to hold perpetrators, organisers, financiers, and sponsors of this reprehensible act of terrorism accountable and bring them to justice.”
The Indian foreign minister also said India took swift action because it had intelligence that suggested “further attacks” were imminent.
Pakistan denied all of India’s terrorism allegations, denounced Tuesday’s strikes as an act of war, and responded with heavy artillery fire along the Line of Control (LoC), the border between the Indian and Pakistani portions of Kashmir.
India said its forces would respond proportionately to Pakistan’s “ceasefire violations,” by which it means the ceasefire that ended the last round of Indian and Pakistani hostilities in Kashmir.
The ceasefire agreement was forged in 2003 and renewed by both sides in February 2021. India accused Pakistan of violating the agreement for the past ten days, first with sporadic small-arms fire from its border patrols, and now with heavy artillery fire.
Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Wednesday promised a “befitting reply” to India’s “cowardly attack.”
Sharif insisted Pakistan had “made a sincere offer of a credible, transparent, and neutral investigation,” but India rejected the offer and chose military action instead.
Lt. Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, director of public relations for the Pakistani military, accused India of launching an “unprovoked attack” and “targeting innocent people.” He reported a death toll of at least 26 civilians, including women and children, describing all of the dead as “martyrs.”
Chaudhry denied India’s allegations that the mosques and madrassas it targeted were terrorist recruiting and indoctrination centers, and claimed several children were killed in the mosque bombings. He also claimed “minor damage” was inflicted to a “small hospital” in the town of Shakar Garh that was not on India’s published target list.
Chaudhry said India’s “reckless” operation endangered civilian air traffic, and he accused India of targeting a major hydropower project, a “dangerous escalation” that “raises serious questions about compliance with international humanitarian law and war conventions.”
“Pakistan reserves the right to respond, and will do so at a time and place of our choosing,” he said. “The enemy will never be allowed to succeed in his nefarious objectives.”
Pakistan’s National Security Committee (NSC) on Wednesday authorized Pakistan’s armed forces to retaliate against India’s “unprovoked, cowardly, and unlawful acts of war.”
“Pakistan has been emphatically rejecting Indian allegations claiming the presence of terrorist camps on its territory,” the NSC said in a statement.
The NSC said India’s “unprovoked and unjustified attacks deliberately targeted the civilian areas, on the false pretext of presence of imaginary terrorist camps, resulting in the martyrdom of innocent men, women, and children, and causing damage to the civilian infrastructure, including mosques.”
Pakistan’s information minister, Attaullah Tarar, bizarrely claimed India has already surrendered to Pakistan by raising white flags along the LoC in Kashmir.
Pakistan claims it shot down five Indian jet fighters and a drone from India on Tuesday. As of Wednesday morning, independent observers could not confirm whether any planes went down, although Agence France-Presse (AFP) reporters spotted what appeared to be aircraft wreckage in a field in Kashmir.
