What you need to know
Lammy welcomes ceasefire
David Lammy has said the India-Pakistan ceasefire is “hugely welcome”.
In a post on social media, the foreign secretary said: “I urge both parties to sustain this. De-escalation is in everybody’s interest.”
Earlier, the Pakistani foreign minister, Ishaq Dar, said the UK had played a part in the negotiations, as had the US and Gulf countries.
Water treaty still suspended despite ceasefire
The Indus Waters Treaty between Pakistan and India remains suspended, despite the agreement of a ceasefire, according to Reuters.
The treaty, which was agreed in 1960, regulates the sharing of water from the Indus river basin and its tributaries. India pulled out of the agreement last month after an attack on tourists in Kashmir that led to the latest conflict.
This week, the Indian foreign secretary said New Delhi would not reverse its decision until Islamabad “credibly” ends alleged cross-border militancy. Pakistan’s prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, said any move to block or divert water would be “considered an act of war”.
No religious sites targeted by Indian forces, commander says
In a press conference announcing the ceasefire, an Indian military spokeswoman accused Pakistan of running a “misinformation campaign”.
Wing Commander Vyomika Singh refuted suggestions that India had targeted religious sites during the hostilities.
“We hold every place of worship of all faiths in the highest regard,” she said. “No religious sites have been targeted by the Indian armed forces.”
Pakistan reopens airspace
Pakistan has reopened its airspace after the announcement of a ceasefire agreement with India, according to the Pakistan Airports Authority (PAA).
“Pakistan’s airspace has been fully reopened for all types of flights,” said the PAA.
India confirms ceasefire with Pakistan
Vikram Misri, India’s foreign secretary, has also confirmed that a ceasefire has been agreed.
In a short statement, he said that “both sides would stop all fighting and military action on land, air and sea with effect from 17.00 Indian standard time today (11.30GMT)”.
He added that the directors general of military operations in India and Pakistan will reconvene for further discussions on Monday at noon.
Pakistani foreign minister says UK played a part in ceasefire
Pakistan’s foreign minister confirmed that an immediate ceasefire has been agreed between Pakistan and India, with the UK playing a part in negotiations.
Writing on social media, Ishaq Dar said: “Pakistan and India have agreed to a ceasefire with immediate effect. Pakistan has always strived for peace and security in the region, without compromising on its sovereignty and territorial integrity.
“We mutually agreed to a ceasefire at 4.30pm local Pakistan time. Many countries were involved in the process including US, the UK and Gulf countries. I thanked all the countries who diffused tensions. There will be a full ceasefire including on the Line of Control”, Dar told the local news outlet, Geo TV.
A joint press release will be shared soon.
US secretary of state confirms ceasefire
Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, has confirmed a statement from President Trump that India and Pakistan have agreed to a ceasefire.
In a post on social media, Rubio said that he and the vice-president, JD Vance, had engaged with senior Indian and Pakistani officials, including the prime ministers, Narendra Modi, of India, and Shehbaz Sharif, of Pakistan.
“I am pleased to announce the governments of India and Pakistan have agreed to an immediate ceasefire and to start talks on a broad set of issues at a neutral site,” he said. “We commend prime ministers Modi and Sharif on their wisdom, prudence, and statesmanship in choosing the path of peace.”
Trump announces India-Pakistan ceasefire
President Trump has said India and Pakistan have agreed to a “full and immediate ceasefire”.
In a post on the social media platform, Truth Social, the US president said the agreement comes “after a long night of talks mediated by the United States”.
He congratulated both countries for “using common sense and great intelligence”.
India and Pakistan pick symbolic names for military operations
Amrit Dhillon in Delhi
Both India and Pakistan have chosen emotive names for their military campaigns, designed to resonate with their domestic Hindu and Muslim audiences.
The name Pakistan has chosen is Operation Bunyan al-Marsous, which was picked from a verse in the Quran which directly translates as “a structure made of lead”, or an iron wall.
In India, Narendra Modi, the prime minister, personally selected the name Operation Sindoor, after the reddish substance or paste that Hindu women smear on the parting in their hair after they are married.
He reportedly chose the name out of respect for the widows of the Hindu men who were targeted during the terror attack by armed militants on April 22 in Kashmir, which triggered the current conflict. Several of the widows expressed appreciation for the name as a “sensitive” gesture.
Pakistani high commissioner blames India for escalation
Dr Mohammad Faisal, Pakistan’s high commissioner to the UK, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that his country wants peace, and accused India of being the aggressor.
He said: “You can’t equate both countries, India is the aggressor, its desire to be a hegemon in the region is the main cause of the problem.”
Faisal said India “missed a lot of opportunities” to negotiate.
“If the Indians want to de-escalate, and they declare desire on the part of India, we are there, we are game, we want to have peaceful relations,” he added.
Asked if it would be helpful if both India and Pakistan explicitly ruled out the use of nuclear weapons, the diplomat said: “From Pakistan I have not heard anyone using this word, nuclear weapons … We have not mentioned anything to that effect.”
Pakistan open to talks but not ‘in the shadow of missiles’
The chairman of the governing Pakistan People’s Party has confirmed his country is not in direct contact with India and called for a de-escalation before negotiations can start.
“At this stage there are no formal diplomatic engagements,” Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said. “Pakistan has always believed that dialogue is the only sustainable path to peace. But dialogue cannot take place in the shadow of missiles and drones.
“If India halts its belligerent behaviour, we are fully prepared to de-escalate and engage through diplomatic channels. Peace is Pakistan’s priority, but it cannot come at the cost of our sovereignty or regional stability.”
Zardari said his country remains in “close contact” with international mediators including the US, but added “the burden of responsibility rests squarely with India”.
Calls increase for global mediation
International mediation is essential to dial down the conflict, analysts have said.
Abdul Basit, a senior associate fellow at S Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, told AFP that the latest events were “unprecedented” and should “send the international efforts into overdrive”.
Praveen Donthi, a senior India analyst for the International Crisis Group, said civilian casualties put both governments under “tremendous public pressure” and that neither is going to “de-escalate on their own”.
Michael Kugelman, a Washington DC-based South Asia analyst, said: “Emotions and mistrust are so high that international mediation will be of the essence.”
It comes as the US appears to be getting more involved, with Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, speaking to India and Pakistan’s foreign ministers for the first time since the crisis erupted, as well as with Pakistan’s army chief, Asim Munir, considered the country’s key powerbroker.
Pakistan gets approval for $1.4 billion IMF loan
The escalation in the conflict comes as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) approved a fresh $1.4 billion loan to Pakistan under its climate resilience fund on Friday.
The IMF executive board also approved the first review of its $7 billion programme, saying in a statement that Pakistan had “delivered significant progress in stabilising the economy and rebuilding confidence”. No fresh money from the resilience loan was made immediately available.
At Friday’s IMF board meeting, India raised concerns about the “possibility of misuse of debt-financing funds for state-sponsored cross-border terrorism”.
Shehbaz Sharif, Pakistan’s prime minister, said: “India’s attempts to sabotage the IMF programme have failed.”
The staff-level agreement on both programmes was reached before the current hostilities rose.
We shouldn’t even discuss nuclear option, Pakistani minister says
Pakistan hitting India with nuclear weapons is a “very distant possibility”, Pakistan’s defence minister said.
Khawaja Asif told local media: “This thing that you have spoken about [nuclear option] is present, but let’s not talk about it — we should treat it as a very distant possibility, we shouldn’t even discuss it in the immediate context.
“Before we get to that point, I think temperatures will come down.”
Missiles hit road near Pakistani airbase
One of the bases Pakistan accused India of targeting was in Rawalpindi, some 10km from the capital, Islamabad.
At 2.30am local time, Haroon Janjua, The Times journalist, witnessed two missiles hitting the main road outside the boundary wall of Nur Khan airbase.
There were plumes of smoke as well as fire and Pakistani jets were roving in the skies. Soon after the missile attacks in Rawalpindi hundreds of people came out at the site holding Pakistani flags and chanting slogans in favour of Pakistan.
India-Pakistan conflict at most intense level in 40 years
The India-Pakistan conflict has not reached this level of intensity in 40 years, a South Asia expert said.
Elizabeth Threlkeld, the director of the South Asia programme at the Stimson Center, a think tank in Washington, said: “The intensifying India-Pakistan conflict is deeply concerning and poses a significant risk of escalation.
“This is the first time we have seen this level of conflict in urban areas and against military targets country-wide since the two sides developed latent nuclear weapons in the 1980s.”
Border villages reel as shelling disrupts daily life
While experts in TV studios debate the likelihood of an all out war, for families living in villages and towns on the long 2,065 mile border with Pakistan in west India, it feels like war already.
Normal life has been disrupted as families have fled their homes to escape drone and missile attacks.
In the town of Uri, in Indian-controlled Kashmir, Zeenat Begum, a 40-year-old mother of two, was moving to safety in her car when a shell hit, killing her instantly.
Days and nights are punctuated by air raid sirens, blackouts, the explosion of shells, drone attacks, and panic.
Sukhhit Singh, in Amritsar, Punjab, said residents had been told to stay indoors and that if an air raid siren goes off his family will “rush to the underground car park of the mall near us and spend the night there” as they do not have a basement.
Pakistan closes airspace as India suspends services
Flights have been disrupted in Pakistan and parts of India.
Pakistani airspace is closed and will remain shut for all flights until midday on Sunday, the country’s aviation authority said.
In India, civil flights from 32 airports along its northern and western regions are suspended until May 15.
The latest airports to be shut are mainly those located in the northern states of Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir, and the western state of Gujarat, bordering Pakistan.
No direct contact with India, Pakistani minister says
There is no direct contact between India and Pakistan, a Pakistani minister has said.
Attaullah Tarar, the information minister, said: “We are not in contact with India directly, there is no direct contact. We have engaged on diplomatic channels with different countries.
“India targeted the civilian population in Pakistan. Pakistan retaliated in accordance with the UN charter.”
Earlier, Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, urged both sides to “re-establish direct communication to avoid miscalculation”.
Indian PM calls meeting with top officials
Narendra Modi, the Indian prime minister, chaired a meeting with top security officials at his residence on Saturday morning.
Rajnath Singh, the defence minister, Ajit Doval, the national security adviser, and the chiefs of the army, navy and air forces were in attendance.
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Panic buying takes hold in Delhi
People in Delhi have been stockpiling food as the sense of panic escalates.
“For the past couple of days, my customers have been ordering large quantities — of up to 10kg — of rice, lentils, cooking oil, eggs and milk,” Ganesh Verma, a grocery store owner, said.
Long queues of cars and scooters formed at petrol stations to fill fuel tanks. “I want to be able to escape to my relatives who live in the hills if things get scary here,” Amar Agarwal, a garment exporter, said.
Medicines are also being ordered in bulk. In the towns on India’s border with Pakistan which have been affected by drone and missile attacks for three nights, shops are running out of food for the same reason despite ministers telling the public that no shortages are expected.
‘As night approaches, our anxieties increase’
Residents of Jammu and Kashmir spoke of a sleepless night due to the strikes.
“We could not sleep for the night due to the explosions. There is tremendous fear and we are praying that tensions de-escalate,” Mohammad Ibrahim, a 50-year-old resident in Srinagar, said.
Thousands of people living near the Line of Control, the de facto border dividing Kashmir between India and Pakistan, have been displaced due to shelling and several residential properties have been destroyed.
Zubair Ahmad Khan, 27, a resident of Uri whose house was among those destroyed, said: “As night approaches, our anxieties increase because we have been facing artillery shelling during the night mostly for the last several days.” Khan and his family are staying in a makeshift relief camp but as tensions escalate that camp’s safety may not be guaranteed.
How the stakes have been raised
Both sides have accused each other of raising the stakes in two ways.
Firstly, by targeting major military sites in each other’s territory. Until now, India said it had refrained from hitting military installations in Pakistan but that seems to no longer be the case. Pakistan accused India of launching missiles at three of its military bases and Vikram Misri, India’s foreign secretary, said on Saturday morning that Pakistan had attacked airbases and military installations in north India.
Secondly, the weapons being used have been scaled up. The hostilities till Friday night had mostly involved hundreds of drones and missile attacks by both sides. Now, the two nuclear-armed neighbours have resorted to long-range weapons, high-speed missiles, and fighter jets.
India also accused Pakistan of targeting civilians.
Srinagar residents told to stay indoors
Residents of Srinagar and other parts of Kashmir have been told not to venture outside unless necessary after reports of munitions landing in the Dal Lake and residential areas were labelled as “unprecedented”.
Three eyewitnesses confirmed that munition debris was found in two locations in the lake as well as at two other locations in the peripheries of the city. Munitions were also found in multiple residential areas in Jammu.
People in Srinagar woke up to the sound of explosions that were reported near the city’s airport, one of the main Indian Air Force bases in Kashmir.
Pprojectile fires followed by blasts, allegedly interceptions from the air defence system, were reported throughout the night in Jammu city, which is in the southern part of the region just miles away from the border with Pakistan.
Senior Indian official killed in shelling
A senior official was killed in shelling in Rajouri, Jammu, Indian authorities have said.
Omar Abdullah, the chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, said Raj Kumar Thapa’s residence was hit by Pakistani shelling.
A spokesperson for the ministry of defence added: “The shelling of Rajouri, which killed a senior official, along with the ongoing targeting of civilian infrastructure, underscores Pakistan’s malicious intent.”
India denies Pakistani claims of base destruction
India has accused Pakistan of misinformation and propaganda, denying its military facilities had been destroyed.
A spokesperson for the ministry of defence said: “The recent claims made by Pakistan regarding the destruction of Indian military facilities, infrastructure, and the alleged missile attacks on Afghanistan are nothing but lies and propaganda.
“Allegations about the destruction of air force stations in Sirsa, Suratgarh, and the S-400 base in Adampur are completely false, designed to mislead the international community. Pakistan continues to attempt at sowing discord among India’s communities.”
Pakistani PM praises response to Indian strikes
Pakistan’s prime minister said the country’s actions overnight was a “befitting reply” and “avenged the blood of innocents”.
Shehbaz Sharif said: “Pakistan specifically targeted Indian military installations from which attacks on Pakistan had been launched.
“India launched missile and drone attacks on Pakistan, and our brave forces have responded forcefully to India’s successive actions.”
At least 13 killed in overnight Kashmir strikes
At least 13 civilians were killed in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir in the 12 hours until midday local time on Saturday, according to the region’s disaster authority.
More than 50 people were also injured in the region, Reuters reported.
The deaths overnight added to the 50 thought to have been killed across both sides since fighting erupted earlier this week.
Is it safe to visit India right now?
Tensions between India and Pakistan are rising after Pakistan launched a drone attack near Jammu airport in Indian-controlled Kashmir on Thursday, May 8. It comes after India fired missiles at its neighbour in the early hours of Wednesday, May 7, in what it said was retaliation for an attack that killed Indian tourists in April.
Pakistani officials called the strikes a “blatant act of war” and said that dozens of civilians had been killed, with its defence minister vowing retaliation. The clash was the worst between the nuclear-armed neighbours in two decades.
Airlines have cancelled and rerouted hundreds of flights and the UK Foreign Office has updated its advice on travel to India, while more than 20 airports are currently closed to civilians in northern India. If you have an upcoming trip planned, here’s everything you need to know.
• Read in full: India travel advice
India and Pakistan indicate willingness to de-escalate
Both sides said they would de-escalate if the other side reciprocated.
Ishaq Dar, the Pakistani foreign minister, said his country would consider stopping its attacks if India agreed to do likewise.
He told Pakistan’s Geo News: “We responded because our patience had reached its limit. If they stop here, we will also consider stopping.”
Dar said he had conveyed the same message to Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state.
Wing Commander Vyomika Singh told a briefing that India was committed to “non-escalation” provided that Pakistan reciprocates.
“Indian armed forces remain in a high state of operational readiness,” she said. “Indian armed forces reiterate their commitment to non-escalation, provided it is reciprocated by the Pakistan military.”
India accuses Pakistan of escalation
The Indian military claimed Pakistan was increasing its deployment of troops along the border.
In a briefing, military spokeswomen said the movement of Pakistani troops indicated “offensive intent to further escalate the situation”.
They said Pakistan had launched several high-speed missiles targeting multiple airbases overnight in Punjab. They also accused Pakistan of targeting health facilities and schools at three airbases in Indian-controlled Kashmir but said the attacks had been “effectively countered”.
India had responded in a “responsible and measured fashion to these provocations and escalations by the Pakistani side”, Vikram Misri, the foreign secretary, said.
The Indian military said it carried out precision strikes on military targets which included technical infrastructure, command and control centres, radar sites and weapon storage areas.
Britons in Pakistan told to follow online travel advice
The UK high commissioner to Pakistan urged British nationals in Pakistan to follow travel advice online.
Jane Marriott said she understands British nationals in Pakistan “may be concerned given the unpredictable nature of the situation”.
She said: “The UK continues to urge both countries to show restraint and engage in direct dialogue to find a swift, diplomatic way forward. Conflict is in no one’s interests.”
Pakistan denies nuclear arms meeting reports
The Pakistani government said no meeting of the body responsible for the country’s nuclear weapons was scheduled despite reports.
Shehbaz Sharif, the prime minister of Pakistan, was said to have summoned a meeting of the National Command Authority.
However on Saturday, Khawaja Asif, Pakistan’s defence minister, said no such meeting had happened or was scheduled.
China offers to be mediator as G7 calls for restraint
China, which controls part of the region, also expressed “deep concern” over the escalating situation.
It urged both sides to return to resolving issues through peaceful political means and offered to play a constructive role in resolving the matter, its foreign ministry said.
Earlier, the Group of Seven (G7) major economies, which the UK is part of, called for maximum restraint from India and Pakistan, urging the nuclear-armed neighbours to engage in direct dialogue.
US urges India and Pakistan to de-escalate
Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, offered assistance to both sides in “starting constructive talks to avoid future conflicts”.
Speaking separately with Ishaq Dar, the Pakistani deputy prime minister and foreign minister, and Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, the Indian external affairs minister, Rubio also urged both sides to “re-establish direct communication to avoid miscalculation” while finding ways to de-escalate, Tammy Bruce, the state department spokeswoman, said.
Rubio has spoken to officials from both countries regularly since April, but the US now appears to be engaging more deeply as tensions continue to escalate.
JD Vance, the US vice-president, previously said Washington would not intervene in the conflict beyond encouraging de-escalation because it was “fundamentally none of our business”.
India and Pakistan exchange cross-border fire
The two countries have been clashing since India struck areas it described as “terrorist infrastructure” in Pakistan on Wednesday in retaliation for a deadly attack on tourists in Indian-controlled Kashmir last month, which India blames on Pakistan. Islamabad has dismissed involvement.
Both countries have exchanged cross-border fire as well as shelling and have sent drones and missiles into each other’s airspace in recent days.
India and Pakistan have fought several wars over Kashmir, which both countries claim in full and has been split since 1947 when British colonial rule ended.
