India, Pakistan continue attacks

INDIA and Pakistan accused each other of launching new military attacks yesterday, using drones and artillery for the third day in the worst fighting between the nuclear-armed South Asian neighbours in nearly three decades.

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The old enemies have been clashing since India struck multiple locations in Pakistan on Wednesday that it said were “terrorist camps”, in retaliation for a deadly attack on Hindu tourists in Indian Kashmir last month.

Pakistan denied it was involved in the attack but both countries have exchanged cross-border fire and shelling and sent drones and missiles into each other’s airspace since then, with about four dozen people dying in the violence.

Villagers have fled border areas in both countries and many cities have been hit with blackouts, air raid warnings and panic buying of essentials. India has suspended its prestigious Indian Premier League T20 cricket tournament after one match was stopped midway on Thursday and the floodlights switched off.

The fighting is the deadliest since a limited conflict between the two countries in Kashmir's Kargil region in 1999. India has targeted cities in Pakistan's mainland provinces outside Pakistani Kashmir for the first since their full-scale war in 1971.

The Indian army said yesterday that Pakistani troops had resorted to “numerous cease fire violations” along the countries’ de-facto border in Kashmir, a region that is divided between them but claimed in full by both.

“The drone attacks were effectively repulsed and befitting reply was given to the CFVs (ceasefire violations),” the army said, adding that all “nefarious designs” would be responded to with “force”.