NEW DELHI, India – In the first few hours on Wednesday, Indian troops said they had attacked nine locations in Pakistan and Pakistan-controlled Kashmir. There, the residents were woken up to a major explosion as nuclear-armed rivals were driven to the height of a full-scale military conflict.
New Delhi said the missiles accurately targeted “terrorist infrastructure” across the border, showing “substantial restraint.” In a statement, the Indian Army said the attack was “essentially non-escalated” and pointed out that Pakistan’s military facilities were not intentionally targeted.
However, smoke-evacuated Islamabad claimed that India’s attacks in six Pakistan cities killed at least eight civilians, including two children. The Pakistani minister also claimed that the country’s air force had fired down several Indian military jets.
The Indian missile attack, called Operation Sindoah, was the country’s response to the fatal attack on April 22nd in Pahargam, Indian-Kashmir, killing 26 people. India denounced Pakistan for its attack, but Islamabad denied it had any role. Since then, Indian troops have clustered forests near Pahargam, arresting more than 2,000 people and stormed the house in a failed manhunt for gunmen who fled after shooting and killing tourists.
The May 7 attack will provide an opportunity for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to reinforce his strong image at home with the attack on Pakistan and Pakistan’s registered Kashmir, analysts told Al Jazeera. However, the Indian government’s emphasis on signalling “control” shows an attempt to balance its domestic message with other stories in the world.
Analysts say it’s all become an indisputable fact. The Indian attacks raised the risk that regional attacks could have been caught up in a wider conflict.
“Regarding development”
The Indian attack was the most vast as its neighbors last fought a full-fledged war in 1971.
Of the six locations attacked by Indian missiles, two are Pakistan-controlled cities in Kashmir (Muzafarabad and Kotori). One of the world’s most militarized zones, the region of Kashmir is fully claimed and is ruled by Pakistan, which fought three wars by India and Pakistan.
However, the other four targets that India has attacked are in Punjab – Bahawalpur, Malidke, Siarikot and Shakargarh. Among them, Bahawalpur faces the desert in southern Punjab, but Malidke is right next to Lahore, Pakistan’s second largest city, with a population of 14 million.
Indian forces have not attacked Punjab, Pakistan’s economic centre, which has been based on 60% of the country’s population since 1971.
Since then, India’s air attacks have targeted remote areas in Pakistan or Pakistan-controlled Kashmir. Six years ago, the Indian Jets launched a missile at Barakot in Kybarpakhtunkhwa province, Pakistan.
These May 7 attacks are different. Lahore, next to Maridke, is close to the Indian border and is Pakistan’s second most populous city, noted by Sumantra Bose, an Indian political scientist who focuses on the intersection of nationalism and conflict in South Asia. Bahawalpur in southern Punjab is also an important city.
The Indian government claims it has strategically hit only “terrorist infrastructure.” And in a post from X, the Indian military stated that “justice is provided.”
However, Bose said the attack was “highly concerned about development.”
“Surgery-targeted precision strikes will not change the fact that these major explosions were present in Pakistan’s major population centres,” Bose said. “This is a proper Pakistan, not Pakistan and managed Kashmir. [claimed by India]. ”
Modi’s “probably domestic dividend”
Two days after the attack on Pahargam, Modi said in a speech at the election rally in Bihar that his government “promising to pursue at the end of the earth” to “identify, track and punish all terrorists and their supporters.”
After the attack, India has suspended participation in the Indus Water Treaty (IWT), which Pakistan considers water safety. Islamabad is threatening to break out of past peace deals. Both countries expelled each other’s diplomats, military obsessions, and hundreds of civilians.
However, political analysts to attack Pakistan after the Pahargam attack said domestic pressure on the Modi government is growing.
“There was a high level of pressure for Modi to respond to muscles,” said Michael Kugelman, director of the South Asian Institute at the Wilson Center in Washington, DC. “It would be immeasurable that the Indian government will not respond militarily. Modi’s self-projection is a self-projection as a strong, confident, decisive manager who is determined to fight back against terrorism.”
Rashid Kidwai, a political analyst in New Delhi, said the Pahargam attack was “emotionally” wanted by the Indian people for retaliation against the attackers and those seen as their enablers. And Modi responded to those feelings, his image as a national security provider. “India is retaliating in an accurate way,” Kiddwai said.
Praveen Donthi, senior analyst at International Crisis Group, said in many respects the May 7 missile attack in India was in line with the script that New Delhi outlined since the April 22nd killing in Pahargam.
Like Kugelman and Kidwai, Donthi mentioned images that the Modi government created itself domestically. “This moment coincides with India’s self-projection as a strong security state with zero tolerance against terrorism, primarily directed towards the strongman persona of Pakistan and Modi. This was the self-created litmus test the Indian government needed for an ace,” he told Al Jazera. “There’s probably a domestic dividend.”
However, Dongsi warned that India’s attack on Pakistan also “promotes future risks.”
Kugelman described Wednesday’s missile attack as “the most intense level of Indian military action we have seen in Pakistan for quite some time.”
What’s next?
Back in Pakistan, officials pledged retaliation for what they called India’s “act of war,” Kugelman said the situation was also suitable for military leaders in Islamabad.
The attacks “actually strengthen Pakistan’s current regime as military leaders can use these attacks to gather the masses around military leaders,” he said. “The military tended to draw that legitimacy from this idea that it was necessary to protect the country from the threat posed by India. We could see the gatherings around the effect of the flag. [in Pakistan]. ”
Since the Indian attack, both armies have traded heavy cannons and gunfires across the de facto border of contested Kashmir. Now, Kugelman said, “There is a possibility that escalation could be quite strong given the two countries have nuclear weapons.”
“The more hostility is used through traditional military forces under nuclear umbrellas, the higher the risk of nuclear escalation.
“We’re not there,” he pointed out. “But certainly, the risk of escalation is very high.”
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