India’s government said its military struck “terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir from where terrorist attacks against India have been planned and directed.” The statement came early on Wednesday, May 7, 2025, and it named the operation Sindoor. Within hours, Pakistani forces were shelling across the Line of Control.
Al Jazeera described it as the worst fighting between the two nuclear-armed neighbours in more than two decades.
The strikes
According to Indian accounts, the air force began its attack at 1:05 a.m. IST and had hit all nine targets within about 25 minutes. They included camps and hideouts in Pakistani Punjab, Lahore, Bahawalpur and Muridke, plus sites in Pakistan-administered Kashmir. Muzaffarabad and Kotli were among the places struck, Al Jazeera’s Kamal Hyder reported from Islamabad. It was the first Indian strike across the international boundary since 1971, Mint reported.
India said it chose its targets with care. “Our actions have been focused, measured and non-escalatory in nature. No Pakistani military facilities have been targeted,” the government said. The foreign ministry later said multi-agency intelligence had confirmed nine major camps before the operation.
Pakistan’s account differed. A military spokesman told the broadcaster Geo that at least five locations had been hit, two of them mosques. In Bahawalpur, the military said, missiles landed on a mosque, killing a child and wounding two civilians. Islamabad put the toll from the Indian attacks at no fewer than 26 dead and 46 injured, and called them an “act of war.” India said Pakistani shelling had killed at least eight people.
Why India struck
The trigger was the Pahalgam attack on tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir on April 22, which killed 26 men. India blamed Pakistan and promised a response. Pakistan denied any part in it.
Reaction
Hyder reported that Pakistan’s defence minister, Khawaja Asif, had confirmed to a foreign network that at least five Indian aircraft were down and some soldiers captured. Reuters, citing police and witnesses, said the two armies traded heavy gunfire at no fewer than three places along the frontier.
A spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was “very concerned” and wanted “maximum military restraint” from both sides. President Donald Trump called the clashes “a shame” and said, “I just hope it ends very quickly.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he was following events closely.
Praveen Donthi, senior India analyst at the International Crisis Group, said the escalation had already passed the scale of the 2019 crisis, with “potentially dire consequences.” Nitasha Kaul of the University of Westminster said the people hardest hit would be Kashmiris, “caught between the competing and proprietorial and rival postures and attitudes of India and Pakistan.”
What followed
The fighting went on for days. On the night of May 8, Indian officials said, Pakistan sent waves of drones, about 500 by the Indian Army’s count, at 24 cities. Air Marshal AK Bharti said air defences neutralised them with no damage on the ground. India then hit Pakistani air bases including Rafiqui, Murid, Chaklala and Rahim Yar Khan.
Both sides agreed to stop firing from 5 p.m. IST on May 10. Lieutenant General Rajiv Ghai said it took “only a couple of hours” for Pakistan to break it, and India warned it would respond fiercely to any repeat.
Sources
- OPERATION SINDOOR
- A blow-by-blow account of Operation Sindoor – India’s response to the deadly Pahalgam terror attack | Today News
- India launches Operation Sindoor, exchanges heavy fire with Pakistan
