https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...ec8ed509d15_story.html?utm_term=.6dda28bdc367
Indian fighter jets cross into Pakistani territory, launch targeted airstrike
Pakistani protesters shout slogans and carry an effigy of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a protest against India, in Peshawar, Pakistan, on Monday, Feb. 25, 2019
February 26 at 2:35 AM
NEW DELHI — India launched an airstrike in Pakistan early Tuesday in an act of retaliation for a terrorist attack that killed 40 Indian paramilitary officers in Kashmir on Feb. 14.
India’s foreign secretary, Vijay Gokhale, told reporters that the strike targeted a training camp run by Jaish-e-Muhammad, the Pakistan-based militant group that claimed responsibility for the attack this month. He said a “large number” of militants were “eliminated” in the operation.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has faced intense pressure to respond to the Feb. 14 attack. Tuesday’s airstrike will inflame tensions between the two nuclear-armed rivals, who presented vastly differing pictures of what occurred in the incident.
According to Pakistan’s military spokesman, Maj. Gen. Asif Ghafoor, the Indian fighter jets crossed the line that divides much of Kashmir between India and Pakistan, a boundary that is not considered an international border.
He said they then dropped a “payload” near Balakot, which is about 25 miles away, just inside the Pakistani province of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.
Faced with a “timely and effective response” from the Pakistan Air Force, the Indian jets released their “payload in haste while escaping,” the spokesman
wrote on Twitter early Tuesday. “No casualties or damage.” He later posted
a photo of what he said was debris from the strike, saying the bombs fell “in the open.”
Gokhale, India’s foreign secretary, said the Indian strike was based on “credible intelligence” that further attacks were being planned by Jaish-e-Muhammad, which is designated a terrorist organization by the United States.
He called the strike a “preemptive action” specifically targeting Jaish-e-Muhammad that was “conditioned by our desire to avoid civilian casualties.” The camp was located on a thickly forested hillside away from civilian dwellings, Gokhale said.
Tuesday’s operation appears to be the most significant retaliatory move by India against its neighbor since 2016. That year, militants stormed an Indian army base near the town of Uri in Kashmir, killing 19 soldiers.
In the wake of that attack, the Modi government launched what it called “surgical strikes” by commandos across the heavily militarized frontier that separates Indian- and Pakistani-controlled Kashmir. Pakistan denied that such cross-border raids took place.
India accuses Pakistan of sheltering and supporting groups like Jaish-e-Muhammad, something Pakistan denies. Since 1989, militant groups have waged an insurgency to end Indian rule in Kashmir. The Himalayan region has been divided between India and Pakistan for more than 70 years.
It's 2011 all over again.
