India and Pakistan clash on LoC; world urges restraint

India hit nine sites in Pakistan with missiles on Wednesday and Pakistan said it had shot down five Indian aircraft and vowed to retaliate, in the worst clash in more than two decades between the two neighbours.

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India told more than a dozen foreign envoys in New Delhi that “if Pakistan responds, India will respond,” fuelling fears of a larger military conflict.

India said it struck nine “terrorist infrastructure” sites, some of them linked to an attack by militants that killed 25 tourists in Kashmir’s Pahalgam last month.

Indian forces attacked facilities linked to militant groups Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Taiba, two Indian military spokespeople told a briefing in New Delhi, in what New Delhi called “Operation Sindoor.”

Jaish said to relatives of its leader Masood Azhar - who was released from an Indian jail in 1999 in exchange for 155 hostages from a hijacked Indian Airlines plane - were killed, with no mention of the fate of Azhar himself.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday chaired a meeting of the Union Cabinet, where he shared details on Operation Sindoor.

Modi informed the cabinet that the operation was executed exactly as planned, with “no mistakes whatsoever.”