Tensions between India and Pakistan have escalated further after a top Pakistani official claimed early Wednesday it has \u201ccredible intelligence\u201d that New Delhi will carry out a military action against Islamabad within the next two days. <\/p>\n
The claim came as both the United States and China urged restraint. <\/p>\n
\u201cPakistan has credible intelligence that India intends carrying out military action against Pakistan in the next 24-36 hours,\u201d Pakistan\u2019s Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said in an unusual middle of the night post on X. He did not elaborate on what evidence Pakistan had used to make the claim. <\/p>\n
Tarar\u2019s comments come just one week after militants massacred 26 tourists in the mountainous town of Pahalgam in Indian-administered Kashmir, a rampage that has sparked widespread outrage. <\/p>\n
India has accused Pakistan of being involved in the attack \u2014 a claim Islamabad denies. Pakistan has offered a neutral investigation into the incident. <\/p>\n
Kashmir, one of the world\u2019s most dangerous flashpoints, is controlled in part by India and Pakistan but both countries claim it in its entirety. <\/p>\n
The two nuclear-armed rivals have fought three wars over the mountainous territory that is now divided by a de-facto border called the Line of Control since their independence from Britain nearly 80 years ago. <\/p>\n
Last week\u2019s attack sparked immediate widespread anger in India and Prime Minister Narendra Modi is under tremendous pressure to retaliate with force. <\/p>\n
India conducted airstrikes inside Pakistan in 2019 following a major insurgent attack on paramilitary personnel inside Indian-administered Kashmir. It was the first such incursion into Pakistan\u2019s territory since a 1971 war between the two neighbors. <\/p>\n
The latest attack on tourists in Kashmir has sparked fears that India might respond in a similar way. <\/p>\n
Modi vowed to pursue the attackers \u201cto the ends of the earth\u201d in a fiery speech last week. The massacre set off an escalating tit-for-tat exchange of hostilities between the two countries over the past week. <\/p>\n
Pakistan\u2019s Tarar on Wednesday claimed any \u201cmilitary adventurism by India would be responded to assuredly and decisively.\u201d <\/p>\n
Secretary of State Marco Rubio will speak to his counterparts in India and Pakistan to urge calm, possibly \u201cas soon as today,\u201d State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said on Tuesday. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe are reaching out to both parties, and telling, of course, them to not escalate the situation,\u201d Bruce told reporters, quoting a statement by Rubio. <\/p>\n
New Delhi is considered an important partner for Washington as it seeks to counter <\/strong>China\u2019s influence in the Indo-Pacific region. Pakistan is also considered a key US partner. <\/p>\n China, which also claims control of part of Kashmir and has grown closer to Pakistan in recent years, has also urged restraint. <\/p>\n China\u2019s foreign minister Wang Yi spoke to Pakistan\u2019s deputy prime minister and foreign minister Ishaq Dar last week, saying any conflict between Pakistan and India would \u201cnot serve the fundamental interests of each side\u201d and posed a risk to regional security, state broadcaster CGTN reported. <\/p>\n India and China\u2019s relationship has proved fractious in recent years, with clashes at their contested border. Meanwhile, Beijing and Islamabad have strengthened ties, with China continuing to invest in Pakistan under its Belt and Road Initiative. <\/p>\n In the days after the Pahalgam attack, India swiftly downgraded ties with Pakistan cancelling visas of Pakistani nationals and suspending its participation in a crucial water-sharing pact. <\/p>\n The Indus Water Treaty has been in force since 1960 and is regarded as a rare diplomatic success story between the two fractious neighbors. <\/p>\n The treaty governs the sharing of water from the enormous Indus River system, a vital resource supporting hundreds of millions of livelihoods across Pakistan and northern India. The Indus originates in Tibet and flows through China and Indian-controlled Kashmir before reaching Pakistan. <\/p>\n Islamabad has called any attempt to stop or divert water belonging to Pakistan an act of war. <\/p>\n This week, New Delhi and Islamabad have both been flexing their military might. <\/p>\n Two days earlier, India\u2019s navy said it had carried out test missile strikes to \u201crevalidate and demonstrate readiness of platforms, systems and crew for long range precision offensive strike.\u201d <\/p>\n Tensions have been also been simmering along the Line of Control and gunfire has been exchanged along the disputed border for five straight nights. <\/p>\n This is a developing story and will be updated.<\/em> <\/p>\n<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Tensions between India and Pakistan have escalated further after a top Pakistani official claimed early…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16273,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16272"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16272\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} Tit-for-tat moves<\/h2>\n