Drone Raids, Artillery Duels Takes India, Pakistan Close To War – OpEd
In a dangerous escalation towards all-out war, Pakistan has mounted massive drone raids on a wide front against Indian cities and airports on Thursday evening after similar Indian swarm drone attacks on several Pakistani cities earlier in the day with Delhi claiming destruction of a Pakistani Air Defence system in the city of Lahore.
The Indian Navy attacked Pakistan’s major port Karachi, hitting oil dumps late on Thursday night. Huge explosions were reported from Karachi but it was not clear whether India was using its aircraft carrier Vikrant in the attack.
Pakistan claimed shooting down 25 Indian drones of Israeli make, while independent sources in the country admitted to massive explosions in Lahore, Karachi, Gujranwala and six other cities. Later in the day, India claimed shooting down ten Pakistani drones after swarm attacks on Jammu and adjoining areas of Kashmir and Punjab. India also claimed downing three Pakistan combat jets — two China-made JF17 and one US made F 16. But it was not clear how they were brought down, though a military source said the JF17s were hit by India’s S400 Russia made air defence system and F16 was hit in a dog fight with Indian Su30 MKI fighters over Kashmir. Pakistan had claimed shooting down five Indian jets on Wednesday without providing any evidence. But its military spokesman on Thursday admitted to loosing two JF17 fighters during what he described as ‘active duty.’
For the second day, Indian and Pakistani forces traded furious artillery fire, claiming destruction of military posts on the border separating Indian and Pakistan administered Kashmir. On Thursday evening, Pakistani artillery pounded Indian positions in the desert town of Jaisalmer in Rajasthan, pointing to significant escalation across the international border.
15 civilian casualties were reported from the town of Jammu which is now under a total blackout. India Today TV’s journalists in Jammu, reporting live, spoke of frequent explosions and deployment of civil defence towns anticipating casualties.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio called Pakistani PM Shehbaz Sharif and Indian Foreign Minister S Jaishankar on Thursday with fervent appeals for de-escalation, but with little success.
China and many other countries have appealed for restraint and mutual dialogue to ease tensions.
India struck 9 locations in Pakistan it claimed were “terrorist camps” on midnight of 6-7th May with missiles. Masood Azhar leading Islamist terror group Jaish-e-Muhammed admitted loosing 10 members of his family including a brother Abdul Rauf said to be the mastermind of a 1999 Indian Airlines plane hijack. Indian intelligence claimed between 70 to 100 casualties in ranks of terror groups like Jaish and Lashkar e Tayyaba, which India blames for a brutal terror attack in Indian Kashmir on April 22 which left 28 Hindu tourists dead and sparked the current cycle of hostilities between the two nuclear-armed South Asian neighbours.
