NEW DELHI: Indian-Pakistani tensions shot up overnight as India struck three of the most important Pakistani airbases—Nur Khan in Rawalpindi, Murid in Chakwal, and Rafiqui in Jhang—with airstrikes.
The move came hours after Pakistan's military spokesman, Lt Gen Ahmad Sharif Chaudhry, went on record making a public declaration during a news briefing early yesterday morning.
The strikes are being regarded as a response to a sequence of drone strikes reportedly organized by Pakistan on Indian borders late on Friday.
India's counter-attack follows a hail of Pakistani drone attacks that targeted 26 places in the Indian states of Jammu & Kashmir, Punjab, Rajasthan, and Gujarat. Three civilians were hurt in an armed drone attack in Ferozepur in Punjab. Early Saturday morning, several explosions rocked different cities of Jammu and Kashmir, including Srinagar, Jammu, Rajouri, and Udhampur, as Pakistani shelling intensified. The scale and accuracy of the Indian air counterstrike seem to indicate a steep new level of confrontation.
This development led to the Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority halting all flights between 3:15 a.m. and 12:00 p.m. on May 10, 2025. As the military conflict intensified, concerns over regional stability triggered international reactions.
The Group of Seven (G7) countries—Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States—and the European Union issued a collective statement calling for maximum restraint by India and Pakistan. The statement also condemned the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack in Kashmir, which killed 26 people, most of them tourists.
Tragically, Rajouri’s Additional District Development Commissioner (ADDC), Raj Kumar Thappa, lost his life on Saturday morning after his residence was struck during Pakistani shelling. Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah expressed deep sorrow over the loss, noting that Thappa had recently accompanied the state’s Deputy Chief Minister on an official tour and participated in a high-level online meeting.
Responding to de-escalation calls by world powers, Omar Abdullah went on social media platform X (formerly Twitter) to condemn what he termed as the international community's contradictory stance. "I don't know how the 'International Community' expects the present tension in the subcontinent to be de-escalated when the IMF effectively reimburses Pakistan for all the ordnance it is employing to destroy Poonch, Rajouri, Uri, Tangdhar & so many other places," he tweeted.