India stated early Wednesday that it had carried out strikes on what it called terrorist facilities in Pakistan, two weeks after an attack by armed militants killed more than two lots civilians in Indian-administered Kashmir, the New York Times reported.Residents of Muzaffarabad, the capital of the Pakistani part of the challenged area of Kashmir, also reported hearing jets flying above.
They said that a website in a rural area near Muzaffarabad that was when used by Lashkar-e-Taiba, a militant group based in Pakistan, appeared to have been targeted in the strikes.A spokesperson for the Pakistani Army said that at least two other places had actually also come under attack.
One was Bahawalpur, in Punjab Province, the website of a religious academy connected with Jaish-e-Mohammad, another Pakistan-based militant group; and the other was Kotli, a city in Pakistan-administered Kashmir.Lieutenant Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, director general of public relations for Pakistans Armed Forces, confirmed India fired missiles at three various cities.Chaudhry stated the attacks were introduced from Indias area and no breach of Pakistani airspace happened, Al Jazeera reported.The missiles targeted the civilian population in Muzzafarabad and Kotli in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, as well as in Bahawalpur, a city in Pakistans Punjab province, he said.Meanwhile, the spokesman for Pakistans armed forces stated the military will respond to Indias strike at a time and location of its own choosing.It will not go unanswered, the spokesman said in the declaration, which was carried by the Associated Press of Pakistan.The blasts came 15 days after militants opened fire on a group of tourists in the Indian-administered area of Kashmir on April 22, killing 26 and injuring more than a dozen others.The massacre was one of the worst attacks on Indian civilians in years, and India was quick to recommend that Pakistan, its neighbor and archenemy, had been involved.
The two nuclear-armed countries have actually fought several wars over Kashmir, an area that they share but that each claims in whole.The Pakistani government has rejected participation in the attack, and India has presented little proof to support its accusations.
Still, soon after the attack, India announced a flurry of punitive measures against Pakistan, consisting of threatening to disrupt the circulation of a major river system that provides it with water.In Kashmir, Indian forces began a sweeping clampdown, jailing hundreds, as they continued their hunt for the perpetrators.
And India and Pakistan have actually repeatedly exchanged small-arms fire along the border in the days after the attack.But the strikes by India are a surge of the dispute that risks of setting off a full-blown war that might be challenging to contain.
The Pakistani government earlier pledged to react in kind to any Indian hostility, and both countries have the capacity to cause incredible damage.
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