Pakistan says it has 'credible' evidence of imminent Indian military strike

The Pakistani government said on Wednesday, April 29, that it had "credible intelligence" that India was planning an imminent military strike following the recent attack in Kashmir . "Pakistan has credible intelligence that India intends to launch a military strike in the next 24 to 36 hours, using the Pahalgam incident as a pretext," Pakistani Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said in a statement. "Any aggression will be met with a decisive response. India will be fully responsible for any serious consequences in the region." His Pakistani counterpart, Shehbaz Sharif, had urged UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to "advise India" to exercise "restraint."

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had earlier given the green light to a military operation in retaliation for the deadly attack committed a week ago in Kashmir, for which he blamed neighboring Pakistan. During a closed-door meeting, Modi "told the armed forces that they had the freedom to decide the targets, the time and the mode of India's response to the attack," a government source told AFP on condition of anonymity. Speaking to the army chiefs, he "reaffirmed the national resolve to deal a decisive blow to terrorism and expressed his complete confidence in the capabilities of the Indian armed forces" to do so, the source continued.

Immediately after the attack, Indian security forces began a massive manhunt for the perpetrators and their accomplices. The police, for their part, released composite sketches of three of them, including two Pakistani nationals. They accuse them of being part of a group close to LeT, the Pakistan-based jihadist movement Lashkar-e-Taiba, already suspected of the attacks that killed 166 people in Mumbai in 2008.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio will urge his Indian and Pakistani counterparts not to escalate the situation, his spokeswoman said Tuesday. "We are reaching out to both sides and asking them, of course, not to escalate the situation," Tammy Bruce told reporters. The UN secretary-general "strongly" condemned the attack on tourists that left 26 dead on Tuesday in the tourist town of Pahalgam, in the Indian-administered part of Kashmir, his spokesperson said in a statement. "Attacks on civilians are unacceptable under any circumstances," Antonio Guterres added.

Even before any claim, New Delhi blamed Islamabad for this attack, the deadliest to target civilians in this predominantly Muslim region in more than twenty years. Pakistan immediately denied any involvement and called for a "neutral investigation." These two nuclear powers have since been on a war footing. Their governments have increased reciprocal diplomatic sanctions and their nationals have been asked to leave the neighbor's territory by Tuesday at the latest. For several nights, gunfire has been exchanged between Pakistani and Indian soldiers along the "Line of Control" (LoC), the border that separates Kashmir between their two countries. These skirmishes have not caused any casualties, according to the Indian army. Pakistan has not confirmed the clashes that occurred during the night of Monday to Tuesday, but people living on the Pakistani side of the LoC told AFP they heard gunshots caused by weapons.

In a sign of the extreme tensions in the region, Pakistan announced on Tuesday that it had "shot down" an Indian surveillance drone, without specifying the date of this incident, about which India has remained silent. Experts have been fearing a military response from New Delhi for several days, while public opinion on both sides is heated. In 2019, following a deadly attack on its soldiers, India carried out an airstrike on Pakistani soil, which retaliated.

China, another major regional player, again called on its two neighbors on Tuesday to "exercise restraint" and "manage differences through dialogue" in order to "maintain regional peace and stability." Kashmir was partitioned upon independence in 1947 between India and Pakistan, which have since fought several wars and continue to claim sovereignty over the entire territory. Since 1989, fighting between separatist insurgents and the approximately 500,000 Indian troops deployed in the Indian part of this disputed region has left tens of thousands dead.