LIVE UPDATES: India-Pakistan tensions surge as both sides trade attack claims

• Pakistan has denied claims by India’s armed forces that “military stations” in Indian-administered Kashmir’s Jammu and Udhampur, and in Punjab state’s Pathankot, were targeted in drone and missile attacks. No casualties were reported.
• Pakistan’s information minister says his country has engaged only in a “defensive response so far” to India’s attacks on his country, as Pakistan’s military said India launched attack drones into Pakistan on Thursday, killing at least two civilians.
• At least 48 people have been reported killed so far – 32 of them in Pakistan – since India launched missiles on Wednesday that it said targeted “terrorist camps” in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir. Pakistan retaliated with a barrage of artillery strikes.
• The clashes follow escalating tension between the two nuclear-armed countries since a deadly attack in Indian-administered Kashmir’s Pahalgam on April 22, which India blamed on Pakistan. Pakistan has denied any involvement.

Indian army shares video of missile strike against Pakistan

The Indian army has released a short video clip showing a strike on a structure, which it described as a “befitting reply” to Pakistan’s violations of the Line of Control separating Indian-administered Kashmir from Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

In a post on X, India accused Pakistan of carrying out a series of overnight attacks.

Officials in Pakistan say their armed forces have, so far, engaged only in defensive military measures in response to India’s attacks.

What nuclear risks do the current India-Pakistan hostilities pose?

International concern is mounting over the India-Pakistan conflict – as both are armed with substantial nuclear arsenals.

Atomic bombs have only been used twice – 80 years ago on Japan.

What nuclear risks do the current hostilities pose?

Pakistan says the ‘whole world’ will know when it responds to India’s attack

There has been an intensification of tit-for-tat artillery duels along the Line of Control that separates both India- and Pakistan-administered Kashmir. There’s been casualties on the Pakistani side of the Line of Control as well.

The Pakistani military spokesman said that India should move away from cinema and into the real world after the Indians announced there were attacks across India along the bordering regions. Pakistan said that when it does carry out that attack, the whole world will find out.

Now Pakistan, of course, is under pressure to respond. They’ve told the Americans that Pakistan will respond as an act of self-defence.

Yesterday, what happened was something that was unacceptable, another provocation from India. Pakistan shot down almost 30 Israeli suicide drones – supplied to India – in several locations across the country, from the south to the north.

So Pakistan has still not responded.

There were also reports by Indian media that a Pakistani F-16 had been shot down and that a pilot had been captured. However, it is important to note that there is a user agreement with the United States in which Pakistan cannot use American F-16 fighters against India. That is an end-user agreement.

So the Indian claims are being seen as a propaganda campaign here in Pakistan.  However the situation remains tense.

Tensions are running very high and everybody is now anticipating a Pakistani response, which Pakistan says will come at a place and time of its choosing.

Pakistan says Economic Affairs Ministry’s X account hacked

Pakistan’s Ministry of Economic Affairs said its social media account was hacked after a post was published on X calling on international partners to provide loans to Pakistan amid rising tensions with neighbouring India, the Reuters news agency reports.

“We are working to have the Twitter [X] switched off,” the ministry told Reuters, adding that they “did not tweet” about it.

Earlier, both Indian and Pakistani media and information watchdogs flagged the barrage of misinformation linked to the ongoing tensions between the two countries.

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Here’s what you need to know:

• The Indian army has claimed that Pakistan’s armed forces launched multiple attacks using drones and other weapons along India’s western border on Thursday night and Friday morning.
• Pakistan’s Information Minister Attaullah Tarar has again denied that Pakistan launched attacks on targets in Indian-administered Kashmir on Thursday, calling claims of attacks “baseless” as he questioned footage published by Indian media.
• Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States, Rizwan Saeed Sheikh, has said there has been contact with India at the national security level, but called for escalations in “actions” and “rhetoric” to stop.
• The Indian government has ordered X to block users in the country from accessing more than 8,000 accounts, the social media platform said, as New Delhi continues its crackdown on Pakistan-related content.
• Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has expressed concern that tensions between India and Pakistan “will turn into a hot conflict”, as he backed an “international investigation” into the Pahalgam attack.

More details from Pakistan media on drone attacks

Pakistan’s Dawn news outlet has provided more details on the wave of drone attacks launched from India on Thursday.

Dawn quoted the military as saying that the areas where drones were intercepted included Lahore, Attock, Gujranwala, Chakwal, Rawalpindi, and Bahawalpur in Punjab province, as well as Sukkur, Umerkot and Karachi in Sindh province.

One person was confirmed killed and another injured in Miano near the Line of Control with Indian-administered Kashmir, Dawn quoted Lieutenant General Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, the military’s chief spokesperson, as saying.

Two people were also killed in Attock and Rawalpindi, Dawn reported citing police.

Prime Minister Modi under ‘immense pressure’ to target Pakistan

Masood Akhtar, a national security analyst and former air marshal in the Pakistani air force, has said that people in Pakistan “thought that it was all over” after India bombed the country on Wednesday.

But Akhtar told Al Jazeera that Wednesday’s attack “wasn’t enough” for many in India.

“As of now, there is immense pressure on the Indian Prime Minister [Narendra Modi] to continue to act, to ratchet up the pressure [on Pakistan],” he said.

Inside Muridke: Did India hit a ‘terror base’ or a mosque?

The Indian strike on Pakistan’s city of Muridke this week was a part of Operation Sindoor, the most expansive aerial attacks on Pakistan outside the four wars that the two nuclear-armed neighbours have fought.

And of all the sites targeted by India, Muridke was particularly significant.

Muridke has long been believed to be home to the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) armed group, which India and other countries have blamed for carrying out deadly attacks on Indian soil, including the November 2008 attacks in Mumbai.

But Pakistan said only civilians were killed in the Indian missile strikes on Muridke.

Read the full report on the attack by Al Jazeera’s Abid Hussain here.

India accuses Pakistan of carrying out more drone attacks, committing ‘numerous ceasefire violations’

The Indian army has claimed that Pakistan’s armed forces launched multiple attacks using drones and other weapons along India’s western border on Thursday night and Friday morning.

The army said Pakistan also “resorted to numerous ceasefire violations” along the Line of Control (LoC) between Indian- and Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

“The drone attacks were effectively repulsed,” the military said in a post on X, adding that it gave a “befitting reply”, without providing details.

Pakistan has denied carrying out any cross-border attacks over recent days.

Human rights lawyer denounces India’s decision to block social media accounts

In a post on social media, Arjun Sethi, a civil and human rights advocate, called India a leader in “the world in digital authoritarianism”.

India had earlier ordered X to block more than 8,000 accounts, the platform said it was reluctantly complying with what it described as government-imposed “censorship”, amid its escalating conflict with neighbouring Pakistan.

Sethi, who is also an expert on surveillance issues at Georgetown University, noted that blocked accounts include human rights defenders and international news outlets.

India has also banned over a dozen Pakistani YouTube channels, including several news outlets, accusing them of spreading “provocative” content, as well as the Instagram account of Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Imran Khan, according to The Hindustan Times.

Editor’s Choice: What to read and watch right now

We’ve published several stories covering the escalating tension between India and Pakistan over the past day, including:

• Explainer: Have India and Pakistan started a drone war?
• News: ‘No deterrent value’ – Will India’s strikes on Pakistan stop armed attacks?
• Feature: ‘Don’t want war’ – Kashmiri towns caught in deadly India-Pakistan crossfire
• Watch: What’s going on between India and Pakistan?

South Asia expert warns against spread of disinformation amid India-Pakistan tensions

Earlier, we reported on the spread of misinformation and rumours linked to the escalating conflict between India and Pakistan.

Michael Kugelman, a South Asia analyst and writer for Foreign Policy magazine, said that disinformation regarding the conflict “is escalating as rapidly as the hostilities”.

“Both are very dangerous for different reasons,” he said in a social media post, urging the public to follow reliable sources of information and fact-checkers.

“At moments like this, their work is absolutely critical.”

Turkiye’s Erdogan backs international probe on Pahalgam attack

In a statement posted on social media, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan expressed concern that the escalation of tensions between India and Pakistan “will turn into a hot conflict”, which could result in the deaths of many civilians.

After a telephone conversation with Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Erdogan said that he found Islamabad’s proposal “for an international investigation into the heinous terrorist attack” in Pahalgam, in India-administered Kashmir, “valuable”.

The attack in April killed at least 26 civilians and ignited the current tension between India and Pakistan after New Delhi laid the blame for the killings on Islamabad.

“Although there are those who want to pour gasoline into the fire, we in Turkiye are making every effort to reduce tensions and open channels of dialogue before events reach a point of no return,” Erdogan wrote on X.

India-Pakistan drone war heats up

Pakistan’s military says it brought down 25 Indian drones over cities including Karachi and Lahore.

India says Pakistan had targeted India and Indian-administered Kashmir with drones and missiles that were shot down.

The exchanges are fuelling fears of a new phase in the ongoing tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbours.

X to comply with Indian order to block more than 8,000 accounts

The Indian government has ordered X to block users in the country from accessing more than 8,000 accounts, the social media platform said, as New Delhi continues its sweeping crackdown on Pakistan-related social media content.

“X has received executive orders from the Indian government requiring X to block over 8,000 accounts in India, subject to potential penalties including significant fines and imprisonment of the company’s local employees,” the site’s global government affairs team said in a statement.

The Elon Musk-owned platform said the order includes demands to block international news organisations and other prominent users. The company did not provide details. It also added that the Indian government had not specified which posts violated Indian law and provided little evidence or justification for the demand to blocks accounts.

“Blocking entire accounts is not only unnecessary, it amounts to censorship of existing and future content, and is contrary to the fundamental right of free speech,” the X statement said.

“This is not an easy decision, however keeping the platform accessible in India is vital to Indians’ ability to access information,” it added.

The move by X comes a day after Instagram owner Meta also banned Indian users from accessing a prominent Muslim news page on the platform at New Delhi’s request.

More on Pakistan’s decision to move cricket matches to UAE

Earlier, we reported that the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has decided to move the remaining eight matches of the Pakistan Super League (PSL) to the United Arab Emirates due to growing security concerns amid increasing tensions with India.

PCB chairman Mohsin Naqvi, who is also the country’s interior minister, said the decision was reached for the sake of the safety of players.

“The PCB has always stood by the position that politics and sports need to be kept apart,” he said.

“However, in view of the extremely irresponsible and dangerous Indian act of targeting the stadium, the PCB has taken this decision,” Naqvi was quoted as saying in the statement issued by the board.

Several drones were reportedly launched by India on Thursday morning, including at least three on Pakistan’s Rawalpindi city, one of which was reported to have come down within the compound of Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium, which is currently hosting Pakistan Super League matches.

Pakistan’s US envoy says India, Pakistan have had contact at national security level

Pakistan’s ambassador to the US, Rizwan Saeed Sheikh, said there has been contact at the level of national security, but called for the escalation “both in terms of the actions that have been taken and in terms of rhetoric that is coming out” to stop.

“Now the responsibility for de-escalation is on India, but there are constraints on restraint. Pakistan reserves the right to respond back. There is enough pressure from our public opinion on the government to respond,” he said in an interview with CNN.

What are India and Pakistan’s nuclear capabilities?

India carried out its first nuclear test in May 1974, and in May 1998, conducted another five tests, declaring itself a nuclear weapons state.

Pakistan carried out its first nuclear tests shortly after India’s in 1998, officially becoming a nuclear weapons state.

Since then, the two born together, star-crossed nations have been engaged in an arms race that has cost them billions of dollars.

A recap of recent developments

As tensions soar between India and Pakistan, misinformation and unconfirmed rumours of attacks were rife on both sides of the Radcliffe Line.

Here’s what you need to know:

• The Pakistani military has claimed India fired attack drones into Pakistan on Thursday, killing at least two civilians. Pakistan’s military has also said it has downed 25 Indian drones over its territory.
• India has claimed Pakistan attacked Akhnoor, Samba, Kathua and multiple other locations in Jammu in Indian-administered Kashmir.
• India also claimed that Pakistan has fired missiles and drones at military stations in Jammu, Pathankot and Udhampur, close to the countries’ shared border.
• Indian media has also reported that a Pakistani air force pilot was captured by Indian security forces after ejecting from his fighter jet over the city of Jaisalmer.
• Pakistan’s Information Minister Attaullah Tarar has denied that Pakistan launched any attacks in Jammu and Kashmir on Thursday, saying the country’s military has not fired “across [the] international border”. He also denied a Pakistani pilot had been captured.
• US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in calls with leaders of both India and Pakistan, “emphasised the need for immediate de-escalation”, US State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said.

Welcome to our coverage

Hello, and thank you for joining our coverage of the fighting between India and Pakistan after the deadly attack in Pahalgam in Indian-administered Kashmir last month.

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