Pakistan launches military action against India after it says air bases targeted

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Pakistan’s state-run television says the country has launched retaliatory strikes against India.
It has accused India of targeting three Pakistani air bases.
Pakistan says it will not ‘de-escalate’ a spiralling conflict, accusing India of ‘reckless conduct’.

Pakistan said it launched a military operation against India early on Saturday, targeting multiple bases including a missile storage site in northern India, as the neighbours extended their worst fighting in nearly three decades.

Pakistan’s offensive came shortly after it said India had fired missiles at three air bases earlier on Saturday, including one close to the capital, Islamabad, but Pakistani air defences intercepted most of them.

Locked in a longstanding dispute over Kashmir, which both administer separate parts of, the two countries have engaged in daily clashes since Wednesday, when India launched strikes inside Pakistan on what it called militant bases.

Pakistan vowed to retaliate.

In a message to journalists, Pakistan’s military said it had hit a missile storage facility in the Indian city of Beas, adding that the Pathankot Airfield in India’s western Punjab state and Udhampur Air Force Station in Indian-administered Kashmir were also hit.

India’s military was expected to brief the media shortly, the ministry of defence said.

Pakistan’s information minister said in a post on social media site X that the military operation was named “Operation Bunyanun Marsoos”.

The term is taken from the Quran and means a firm, united structure.

Sounds of explosions were reported in India’s Srinagar and Jammu, where sirens were sounded, a Reuters witness said.

“India through its planes, launched air to surface missiles … Nur Khan base, Mureed base and Shorkot base were made targets,” Pakistan military spokesperson Lieutenant General Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry said in a late-night televised statement.

One of the air bases is in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, just outside the capital Islamabad, and the other two are in Pakistan’s eastern province of Punjab, which borders India.

The Pakistani military spokesman said only a few missiles made it past air defences, and those did not hit any “air assets”, according to initial damage assessments.

India has said its strikes on Wednesday, which kicked off the clashes between the countries, were in retaliation for a deadly attack on Hindu tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir last month, which it accused Pakistan of backing.

People light candles during a vigil for victims of an Indian missile strike on a mosque in Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani-administered Kashmir. Source: AAP / Amiruddin Mughal / EPA

Pakistan has denied India’s accusations that it was involved in the attack.

Since Wednesday, the two countries have exchanged cross-border fire and shelling, and sent drones and missiles into each other’s airspace.

Much of the fighting on Friday was in Indian-administered Kashmir and neighbouring Indian states.

A man inspects a room damaged by Pakistan artillery shelling in the Indian-administered Kashmir area of Uri. Source: Anadolu / Getty Images

India said it shot down Pakistani drones.

Sounds of explosions were also heard in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore and the northwestern city of Peshawar, as the fighting threatened to spread.

People in military uniforms walk through an airport.

India’s Civil Aviation Ministry announced the closure of 24 airports for civil flight operations. Source: Getty / Vipin Kumar / Hindustan Times / Sipa USA

At least 48 people have been killed since Wednesday, according to casualty estimates on both sides of the border that have not been independently verified.

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