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08-05-2025
Bureau Report + Agencies
NEW DELHI: The Indian military launched multiple missile attacks targeting sites in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir early on Wednesday in an attack it called Operation Sindoor. The Pakistani military claims to have retaliated, shooting down multiple Indian military planes.
At least 26 Pakistanis have been killed in the six targeted cities, according to Lieutenant Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, the director general of the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) media wing of Pakistan’s military. India says it struck nine sites but what’s the significance of the cities and sites that India attacked? And what are India and Pakistan saying about those strikes and why did India launch these attacks in the first place?
The missiles were India’s response to the deadly April 22 attack on tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir in Pahalgam, during which 26 men were killed.
An armed group called The Resistance Front (TRF), which demands independence for Kashmir, claimed responsibility for the Pahalgam attack. India claims that the TRF is an offshoot of Pakistan-based armed group, the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). Islamabad has denied its involvement in the Pahalgam attack and has asked for a neutral investigation into the incident.
However, since the attack, India has suspended its participation in the Indus Waters Treaty that Pakistan relies on for its water supply. Pakistan has responded by threatening to suspend its participation in the Simla Agreement, a pact signed in 1972 following the Indo-Pakistan War. Both countries have also scaled back their diplomatic ties, and each has expelled the other’s citizens.
How has India justified the attacks?
India claims it hit “terrorist infrastructure”, targeting organizations including the LeT and Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM), an armed group based in Pakistan which claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing in February 2019, which killed 40 Indian paramilitary soldiers in Pulwama in Indian-administered Kashmir.
In a briefing on Wednesday, Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri insisted that the missile strikes “focused on dismantling the terrorist infrastructure and disabling terrorists likely to be sent across to India”.
Joining Misri in the briefing, Indian military officials Colonel Sofiya Qureshi and Wing Commander Vyomika Singh detailed the operation. Five of the nine sites that India hit, they said, were in Pakistan-administered Kashmir. The remaining four were in Punjab in Bahawalpur, Muridke, Shakar Garh and a village near Sialkot.
During the briefing, the Indian military showed a map marking out what it claimed were 21 “terrorist camps” in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir. Al Jazeera has not been able to independently verify the claims of either the Indian or Pakistani militaries.
What has Pakistan said about the sites attacked?
Chaudhry of the ISPR described the Indian strikes as an “unprovoked attack, targeting innocent people”. He indicated that India had launched a total of 24 strikes across six locations in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir.
Chaudhry said at least 26 civilians, including women and children, had been killed, and at least 46 people were injured. He claimed mosques and residential areas were targeted, killing and injuring civilians.
What’s the significance of the sites targeted by India?
The Indian missile strikes represent the most extensive attacks on Pakistani soil outside the four wars that the nuclear-armed neighbors have fought. They also mark the first time since the war of 1971 that India has attacked Punjab, Pakistan’s most populated province and historical and economic hub.
