India’s air strike on Pakistan militant camp escalates tensions, with Islamabad promising retaliation

The incursion follows the deadly February 14 suicide bombing in India’s half of Kashmir that killed at least 40 troops.

India said Tuesday its warplanes attacked a militant camp where Pakistan-backed fighters were preparing suicide attacks on its cities, sending tensions between the arch-rivals to a new peak.A “very large number” of militants from the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) group were killed in the nightime attack, according to the foreign ministry, while Pakistan said its fighter jets scrambled to force the Indian jets back and that there were no casualties.

Pakistan’s National Security Committee, after a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Imran Khan, condemned the airstrike and said it would “respond at the time and place of its choosing”.The escalation came after a February 14 suicide bombing claimed by JeM that killed 40 troops in Indian Kashmir, setting off a chain of threats and counter-warnings between the nuclear-armed neighbours.

Indian Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale said Delhi acted on “credible intelligence” that fighters from JeM were being trained for another attack. “A very large number of Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorists, trainers, senior commanders and groups of jihadis who were being trained for fidayeen [suicide] action were eliminated,” he said.

“Credible intelligence was received that JeM was attempting another suicide terror attack in various parts of the country, and the fidayeen jihadis were being trained for this purpose,” Gokhale said.“In the face of imminent danger, a pre-emptive strike became absolutely necessary. In an intelligence-led operation, in the early hours of today, India struck the biggest training camp of JeM in Balakot.”

The commander of the camp was Maulana Yusuf Azhar, a brother-in-law of JeM leader Masood Azhar, Gokhale said. A senior Indian government source said that 300 militants had been killed in the strikes, which local media reports said took place at 3.30am. Pakistan downplayed the severity of the air strike, saying its own warplanes had chased off the Indian aircraft, which had released their “payload” in a forested area, causing no casualties and no serious material damage.Kashmir shuts to protest India’s crackdown on activists “Indian aircraft intruded from Muzaffarabad sector,” Pakistani military spokesman Major General Asif Ghafoor said on Twitter early on Tuesday, referring to an area in the Pakistan-held part of Kashmir.Balakot police chief Saghir Hussain Shah said he had sent teams to the area, which he described as a mostly deserted wooded area. “There are no casualties, there are no damages on the ground because of the dropping of the bombs,” he said.Pakistan’s National Security Committee said in a statement that it “strongly rejected Indian claim of targeting an alleged terrorist camp near Balakot and the claim of heavy casualties.”

It said Khan would “engage with global leadership to expose irresponsible Indian policy”.

India’s foreign secretary said it was unlikely that Pakistan was unaware of the training camps. “The existence of such training facilities, capable of training hundreds of jihadis, could not have functioned without the knowledge of the Pakistani authorities,” Gokhale said.‘Don’t mess up with us’: Pakistani general has stark warnings for India.Pakistan denies harbouring JeM, a primarily anti-India group that forged ties with al-Qaeda and has been on a UN terror list since 2001. In December 2001, JeM fighters, along with members of another Pakistan-based militant group, Lashkar-e-Taiba, launched an attack on India’s parliament, which almost resulted in the two countries going to war for a fourth time.At an international conference on media and conflict on Tuesday, Pakistan’s President Arif Alvi said India has created “hysteria” in the wake of the attack. He said rhetoric “can lead to war”, and warned that “we know how to defend ourselves”. He did not address the strike by Indian fighter jets.

The February 14 suicide bombing in India’s half of Kashmir was the worst attack on Indian forces since the start of the 1989 insurgency in Kashmir.

Insurgents have been demanding either outright independence or union with Pakistan. India routinely accuses Pakistan of arming and training militants who cross the mountainous Himalayan region.

While Pakistan has outlawed JeM and seized its properties in south Punjab’s Bawahalpur area, including religious schools and mosques, India has demanded that JeM leader, Azhar Masood, be listed as a terrorist by the United Nations. China, one of Pakistan’s closest allies and investors in infrastructure, has not supported this move.

The issue is likely to come up on Wednesday, when Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi is expected to meet his Indian counterpart Sushma Swaraj and Russia’s Sergei Lavrov in the Chinese city of Wuzhen. On Tuesday, China’s foreign minister spokesman Lu Kang said: “We hope that both India and Pakistan can exercise restraint and adopt actions that will help stabilise the situation in the region and improve mutual relations.”