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Pakistan’s military said it launched a wave of short-range missiles into India early on Saturday, as India targeted air bases deep inside Pakistan and the conflict between the two nuclear-armed neighbours moved closer to a full-scale war.
Later in the day, India said Pakistan was moving troops towards the border, signalling its intent to escalate the conflict further by potentially adding ground operations to what until now has been cross-border aerial strikes. Pakistan’s military declined to comment on the claim.
Pakistan said it had launched Operation Bunyan-ul-Marsoos — named after a Koranic phrase that the military is translating as “Iron Wall” — as a response to missile and drone attacks by India since May 7.
The military said it targeted on Saturday a storage site for India’s supersonic BrahMos missile in Beas in the Indian state of Punjab, the Udhampur Air Field in the Indian subregion of Jammu and Kashmir and an airfield in Pathankot, also in Punjab. Islamabad also said India had struck military bases overnight.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif called a meeting of Pakistan’s National Command Authority, which is responsible for command and control of its nuclear arsenal, the military said. The Pakistan Airports Authority said the country’s airspace would be closed until noon on Sunday.
Analysts said the overnight strikes represented a serious stepping up of the conflict.
“This is escalatory from both sides and for two reasons,” said Sushant Singh, lecturer in South Asian Studies at Yale University.
“One is the choice of high-profile military targets like air bases, and the fact that both countries claim to have taken out air defence units on the other side, which is a signal that they are going to come with a bigger package in the next strike.”
In a late-night statement before its strikes into India, Pakistan’s military said its rival had launched six ballistic missiles towards three Pakistani air bases, including the Nur Khan air base near the garrison city of Rawalpindi, which houses the military’s general headquarters. It said only a few missiles made it past air defences, and they did not hit “air assets”.
At a government and military briefing on Saturday, India said Pakistan had attempted “air intrusions” at more than 26 places, from Srinagar in Kashmir in the north to Naliya, in Gujarat, near the southern tip of the two countries’ border.
India also said Pakistan fired a high-speed missile at an air base in Punjab in the early hours, and targeted health centres and schools in air force centres in Jammu & Kashmir. It said it responded with “precision attacks only on identified military targets”, including technical infrastructure, command and control centres, radar sites, and weapons storage areas.
An Indian district official in the border town of Rajouri in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir was killed in shelling from Pakistan, the region’s chief minister Omar Abdullah said.
The overnight air strikes by both countries represent a ratcheting up of the air campaign that began when India carried out air strikes on what it said were terrorist camps in the Pakistan-administered part of Kashmir, which both countries claim.
The cross-border exchanges between the neighbouring countries represent their worst fighting since the Kargil War of 1999. India has styled the conflict as an essential blow against a regime it accuses of supporting terrorism, while Pakistan says it is defending itself against an Indian attack over a crime it says it did not commit.
New Delhi launched its “Operation Sindoor” strikes this week in response to the mass shooting of 25 Indians and a Nepali citizen in Pahalgam, a tourist hub in Indian-administered Kashmir, on April 22. India blames the attack on militants backed by Pakistan, while Pakistan denies involvement.
Pakistan accuses India of killing 33 civilians, including seven children, since aerial and drone attacks began on Wednesday, and officials have vowed to “avenge” the lost lives. It has sent drone swarms and ballistic missiles into India in response.
Inter-Services Public Relations, which speaks on behalf of Pakistan’s military, said it launched locally made Fatah missiles, a variation of which the country had brandished in a Monday test observed by the army chief Asim Munir. A poster attached to a land-based launcher said the missiles were “with love from” the seven children Islamabad claimed were killed by India on Wednesday, according to images shared by ISPR.
India has described its strikes on Pakistan as “measured, non-escalatory, proportionate, and responsible”.
Diplomatic efforts to defuse the conflict intensified this week. Marco Rubio, US secretary of state and national security adviser, phoned the Pakistani army chief Munir to urge calm and offer US help in starting talks between India and Pakistan “to avoid future conflicts”, according to a State department readout.
Saudi Arabia sent Adel Al-Jubeir, a senior diplomat, to India and Pakistan this week. It said it was “part of the kingdom’s efforts to de-escalate and end the ongoing military confrontation” by resolving all disputes through diplomatic channels.
Additional reporting by Ahmed Al-Omran
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