Middle East Watch

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New Delhi — A deadly terrorist attack in Indian-administered Kashmir’s picturesque Pahalgam area in April has brought India and Pakistan once again to the brink of war. The nuclear armed South Asian neighbors have attacked each other this week with missiles and drones in a sudden flare-up of a decades-old feud that’s being watched with concern by leaders around the world.

The bitter rivals have fought three wars over Kashmir in the past, and once again they’re warning each other against any moves that could escalate the tension — and vowing to respond in kind to any such moves with tough military action.

After a week of intense clashes, air raid sirens blared in a couple Indian cities near the Pakistani border on Friday and authorities asked people to remain indoors. Officials said a woman was killed and four men injured in alleged Pakistani cross-border fire in the Kashmiri town of Uri, while all major airports and the capital city of Delhi were on high alert, with some schools shut and major landmarks evacuated.

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India fired missiles across the border into Pakistani-administered territory in at least five locations early Wednesday local time, killing at least one child and injuring two other people, Pakistani security officials said. India said it was striking infrastructure used by militants.

The strikes came amid soaring tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbors over last month’s militant attack on tourists in the Indian-administered portion of Kashmir. India has blamed Pakistan for backing the militant attack, which Islamabad has denied.

A spokesperson for the Pakistani Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that the strikes hit Muridke and Bahawalpur, and across the Line of Control in Kotli and Muzaffarabad, Azad Jammu and Kashmir. One of them struck a mosque in the city of Bahawalpur in Punjab, where a child was killed, and a woman and man were injured, one official told The Associated Press.

“India’s act of aggression has resulted in martyrdom of civilians, including women and children,” the spokesperson said. “This act of aggression has also caused grave threat to commercial air traffic.”

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A “tit for tat” border conflict between India and Pakistan exploding into all-out nuclear war should be “every sane person’s deepest fear”, a foreign policy expert has warned. India fired missiles into Pakistani-controlled territory in several locations late on Tuesday night, killing at least 26 people, including a child, in what Pakistan’s leader called an act of war. The country’s military said it struck infrastructure used by militants linked to last month’s massacre of tourists in the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir.

Pakistan then claimed it shot down several Indian fighter jets in retaliation as two planes fell onto villages in India-controlled Kashmir. At least seven civilians were also killed in the region by Pakistani shelling, Indian police and medics said. The nations are two of the world’s nuclear-capable militaries. Prof Antony Glees, Emeritus Professor of Politics, Economics and International Studies at the University of Buckingham, told The Express that the fate of the world could well now be on a knife-edge.

He said: “Everyone knows that there would be no winners if India and Pakistan used nuclear weapons against each other, although it does not stop them from fighting awful conventional wars like Putin’s war against Ukraine. However, tit for tat conflicts can escalate.

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As Pakistan reels from the most extensive airstrikes on its territory from India during official peacetime between the two countries, and amid ongoing gunfire exchanges across the Kashmir border, observers worry about further escalation between the nuclear-armed neighbors.

But beyond bullets and missiles, there’s another weapon that India has threatened to use in the conflict that Pakistan has said would surely constitute an “Act of War”: water.

Among the targets of India’s early Wednesday strikes was Pakistan’s Neelum-Jhelum hydropower project, according to Pakistan’s armed forces. The strikes came just hours after India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that India would stop water from flowing out across its borders.

“Now, India’s water will flow for India’s benefit, it will be conserved for India’s benefit, and it will be used for India’s progress,” Modi said Tuesday.