India launched air strikes on Pakistan's territory Wednesday morning in the aftermath of a terrorist attack that killed 26 Indians two weeks ago. Most of the dead in the worst attack on Indian civilians in decades were tourists. Pakistan said it will retaliate and reported 31 deaths. A relatively new Kashmiri nationalist group, The Resistance Front, had claimed the April 22 attack. While India suspects more well-known Pakistan-based terror groups to have pulled the strings, Pakistan denies it was supporting terrorists and comdemned the attack.
India said it killed two terrorists the day after the attack on their side of the border. Both countries expelled diplomats and civilians and closed their airspace to the other's airlines, while India also withdrew from a major water treaty. Fire was exchanged almost daily between both sides, reports say. Some expect India to still launch an attack, which Pakistani officials said they would return.
The last border crisis in 2019 also emerged after a terror attack in Kashmir, which killed 40 and was allegedly planned by militant group Jaish-e-Mohammed. India subsequently launched airstrikes into Pakistan's territory, at the time the first such maneuvers by the Indian Air Force since the Indo-Pakistan War of 1971.
Pakistan and India have long been at loggerheads over territory in the region of Kashmir. Both countries have been at war several times and have seen mobilizations on their respective borders over countless issues, most of them territorial. India is the larger nation of the two and also has a larger military budget, according to data by Stockholm Internation Peace Research Institute. Recently, India has grown its defense budget significantly, far outperforming Pakistan. Looking at per-capita defense spending, however, the two nations are closer together. Media reports that both countries have modernized their militaries after 2019.
