How a fragile truce over Kashmir was hastily brokered

Amid real fears of nuclear escalation on both sides, senior US figures were drawn in reluctantly to mediate

- Hannah Ellis-Petersen

Indian surface-to-air missiles were already soaring towards Pakistan’s most significant military bases when the first call came from the US.

It was 4am in Islamabad and Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state and recently appointed US national security adviser, was on the line to the man everyone knew was calling the shots in Pakistan: army chief Gen Asim Munir.

It was the beginning of eight hours of negotiations, mediated by the US, that finally secured a fragile ceasefire between India and Pakistan at midday last Saturday, according to two Pakistan security and intelligence officials who spoke to the Guardian. The agreement was first publicly announced by Donald Trump on his Truth Social platform, although Pakistan said the US president never personally made any calls to their side during negotiations.

When India launched missiles at Pakistan last Wednesday, as retribution for a militant attack in Indian-administered Kashmir in April that killed 26 people, the US showed little interest.

The US had said India had “the right to defend itself” after the attack, and India framed its strikes on Pakistan as solely hitting “terrorist camps” that threatened its national security.