Intense artillery fire opposed India and Pakistan on Wednesday along their disputed border in cashmere, a few hours after Indian strikes on Pakistani soil in retaliation for the murderous attack on April 22. At least “26 civilians” were killed in Pakistan, according to a latest assessment. Follow our direct.
Intense artillery fire opposed India and Pakistan on Wednesday along their disputed border in cashmere, a few hours after Indian strikes on Pakistani soil in retaliation for the murderous attack on April 22. These violent exchanges killed at least “26 civilians” on the Pakistani side, including a 3-year-old girl, and injured 46 others, according to the army spokesman, general Ahmed Chaudhry.
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The information to remember:
- The Pakistani army announces a new assessment of “26 civilians killed”, 46 injured
- India says it has targeted “terrorist infrastructure” in the night in Pakistan, two weeks after the attack on Pahalgam
- Several Indian fighter planes have been slaughtered
- The United States calls to “defuse the situation”
A damaged Pakistani dam in cashmere, says the Pakistani army
Indian strikes have damaged a Pakistani dam used to produce electricity in cashmere, the Pakistani army said on Wednesday, after bombing on its soil which, according to her, killed at least 26 civilians.
India has targeted “The Neelum-Jhelum hydroelectric dam”, close to the de facto border that separates the disputed region in two, said army spokesperson, Lieutenant-General Ahmed Chaudhry.
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Three deaths on the Indian side
India has said the death of three civilians on its territory. Committed to the night, the battle continued at daybreak at the border, especially around the Indian village of Poonch targeted by many Pakistani shells, according to AFP journalists. The locality was surmounted by a cloud of black smoke and shaken at regular intervals of very strong explosions, they noted.
“We were woken up by shots (…) I saw shells fall. I told my associates to get out of the building, I was afraid that the roof will collapse,” the agency Press Trust of India (PTI) told a resident of Poonch, Farooq. Violent explosions were also heard earlier at night around Srinagar, the main city of the Indian part of Kashmir, AFP journalists reported.
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“Terrorist infrastructure” targeted by India
An AFP photographer observed the debris of an aircraft bearing French inscriptions in a field in Wuyan, not far from Srinagar. The plane is a Mirage 2000 of the Indian Air Force, an Indian security source told AFP. The fate of his pilot was not immediately known, she added. The Indian army has announced that it would hold a press briefing at 10:00 am local (04:30 GMT).
Two weeks after the attack which killed 26 people in Pahalgam, in the Indian part of the cashmere, India put its threats. During the night from Tuesday to Wednesday, she pulled missiles on nine sites sheltering “terrorist infrastructure” in Pakistan, which she accuses of being responsible for the attack.
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-Islamabad has denied any involvement in this attack, the deadliest targeting civilians in cashmere for over twenty years. One of the sites targeted during the night by the Indian army is the Subhan mosque in Bahawalpur, in the Pakistani pendjab, linked according to Indian intelligence to groups close to the Lashkar-E-Taiba (Let) jihadist movement.
India accuses this group, suspected of attacks which had killed 166 people in Bombay in 2008, of having led the Pahalgam attack.
The cities of Kotli and Muzaffarabad, 120 and 130 km from the capital Islamabad, are among the targets targeted by Indian missiles, according to Pakistan. In Muzaffarabad, the police and the army blocked all access to the Bilal mosque, targeted by an Indian strike. Several surrounding dwellings have also been affected and the population of the district evacuated, according to AFP journalists.
The Pakistani response was quick, in the form of artillery fire targeting several points located on Indian territory. “The response has started and if God wants it, it will increase (…) It will not take much time to solve the problem,” threatened in an interview with AFP the Pakistani Minister of Defense, Khawaja Asif.
The Pakistani national security committee, a body only convened for extreme situations, must meet on Wednesday morning. About 200 Pakistani marched early Wednesday morning in the southern city of Hyderabad, burning Indian flags and portraits of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The chief of French diplomacy calls India and Pakistan “to restraint”
The chief of French diplomacy called on Wednesday India and Pakistan “in restraint” after violent exchanges of artillery between the two countries which killed Indian and Pakistani civilians.
“We understand the aspiration of India to protect itself against the scourge of terrorism, but we obviously call India as Pakistan, in restraint to avoid climbing and obviously to the preservation of civilians,” said Jean-Noël Barrot, on the TF1 channel.
The Minister did not confirm the assertion of the Pakistani army which says that he had killed five Indian planes in Indian airspace, including three French. But he said he was “very concerned about the situation”. “These are two major military powers. This is why we call for restraint,” he insisted.
The United States calls to “defuse the situation”
During the night, the head of American diplomacy Marco Rubio spoke with his Indian and Pakistani counterparts by calling them to dialogue to “defuse the situation and to avoid a new escalation”, according to the spokesman for the National Security Council of the White House.
Asked by the press little before, Donald Trump said hoped that clashes between India and Pakistan “stop very quickly”. “The world cannot afford a military confrontation,” said the secretary general spokesman for the UN.
China called on the two countries “to remain calm, show restraint and avoid taking measures that would further complicate the situation”.
A war of water in parallel
“No Pakistani military installation has been targeted,” said the Indian government, believing to show “considerable restraint” to “avoid climbing”. “The irresponsible action of India brings the two nuclear states closer to a major conflict,” said Pakistani diplomacy.
New Delhi is scheduled to receive the Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who was in Islamabad on Wednesday for mediation on Wednesday. Just before the first strikes of his army, Narendra Modi had announced his intention to “cut the water” from the rivers that take their source in India and irrigate Pakistan.
“The water belonging to India has passed so far outwards, it will now be stopped to serve the interests of India,” said Modi. The day after the attack, India had suspended its participation in a water sharing treaty signed in 1960 with its neighbor.
Pakistan had accused India on Tuesday of modifying the flow of the Chenab river, one of the three placed under its control according to the Treaty called the Indus. This document grants New Delhi the right to use the shared rivers for its dams or cultures, but forbids it to divert streams or alter the volume of water downstream.
