Pakistan and India accuse each other of waves of drone attacks
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RAWALPINDI, Pakistan - India and Pakistan accused each other on May 8 of carrying out waves of drone attacks, as deadly confrontations between the nuclear-armed foes
Pakistan’s army said it shot down 25 Indian drones, while New Delhi accused Islamabad of launching overnight raids with drones and missiles, and claimed it destroyed an air defence system in Lahore.
The fighting comes two weeks after New Delhi blamed Islamabad for backing an attack on the Indian-run side of disputed Kashmir
The South Asian neighbours have fought multiple wars over the divided territory
At least 45 deaths have been reported from both sides following a sharp escalation on May 7, when India launched missiles it said targeted “terrorist camps”, and Pakistan retaliated with a barrage of artillery strikes.
“Pakistan attempted to engage a number of military targets... using drones and missiles,” India’s defence ministry said in a statement on May 8, adding that “these were neutralised”.
The defence ministry earlier said its military targeted air defence radars and systems at a number of locations in Pakistan, adding that it had “reliably learnt that an air defence system at Lahore has been neutralised”.
Blasts heard in Lahore
Residents reported hearing the sound of blasts from the city, and aviation authorities briefly shut down operations at the main airport there and in the capital, Islamabad.
Karachi airport was also closed and remained so on the evening of May 8.
Earlier, Pakistan’s military said in a statement that it had shot down 25 Israeli-made Harop drones at multiple locations across the country.
“Last night, India showed another act of aggression by sending drones to multiple locations,” Pakistan’s military spokesman Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry said from the army’s headquarters in Rawalpindi, where a drone was downed.
Crowds gathered at crash sites, some close to army installations, to gaze at the debris.
The site where an alleged drone was shot down in Karachi, Pakistan, on May 8.
PHOTO: AFP
Emergency responders who were called by the public to the scene in Rawalpindi urged the public “not to panic”.
“Let the authorities take care of it. Stay inside,” said one emergency worker, 32-year-old Wajid, who gave only one name.
Speaking after the May 7 missile strike, India’s Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said New Delhi had a right to respond following an attack on tourists in Pahalgam in Kashmir on April 22, when gunmen killed 26 people, mainly Hindu men.
New Delhi blamed the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba, a UN-designated terrorist organisation, for the Pahalgam shooting, and the nations traded days of threats and diplomatic measures.
Pakistan has denied any involvement and called for an independent probe into the April attack.
Global pressure
Pakistan’s military said on May 7 that five Indian jets had been downed across the border, but New Delhi has not responded to the claims.
An Indian senior security source, who asked not to be named, said three of its fighter jets had crashed on home territory.
Diplomats and world leaders have pressured both countries to step back from the brink.
“I want to see them stop,” US President Donald Trump said
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi is slated to meet his Indian counterpart Subrahmanyam Jaishankar on May 8 in New Delhi, days after visiting Pakistan, as Tehran seeks to mediate.
In Poonch, a town in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir that was bombarded on May 7 and bore the brunt of shelling by Pakistan, Mr Madasar Choudhary, 29, said his sister saw two children killed by shells.
“She saw two children running out of her neighbour’s house and screamed for them to get back inside,” Mr Choudhary said, narrating her account because she was too shocked to speak.
“But shrapnel hit the children – and they eventually died.”
Smoke billowing after an artillery shell landed in the main town of Poonch district in India’s Jammu region on May 7.
PHOTO: AFP
Analyst Happymon Jacob, director of the New Delhi-based Council for Strategic and Defence Research, said that based on past conflicts, the latest would “likely end in a few iterations of exchange of long-range gunfire or missiles into each other’s territory”.
But in an editorial on May 8, the Indian Express said “there is no reason to believe that the Pakistan Army has been chastened by the Indian air strikes”. “India must be prepared for escalatory action” by Pakistan, it said.
In a late TV address to the nation on May 7, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif warned that the nation would “avenge” those killed by Indian air strikes. “We make this pledge, that we will avenge each drop of the blood of these martyrs,” he said.
Mr Jaishankar, the Indian Foreign Minister, warned on May 8 that any Pakistani military action would be met with “a very, very firm response”. AFP
