India strikes Pakistan in 'largest aerial attack in 50 years'

The second is that, as in 2019, India attacked not only disputed territory in Pakistani-held Kashmir but also undisputed Pakistani territory. Pakistan said that India had struck Bahawalpur and Muridke. The latter town, 30km from Lahore, Punjab's capital, has long housed a big compound associated with Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), the Islamist militant group which has deep ties to Pakistan's intelligence service, and which India has blamed for the massacre of tourists on 22 April.

In a book on LeT published in 2012, Stephen Tankel, an American scholar who visited Muridke, noted that the compound had a "palpable sense of ambition…unrivalled in the world of Pakistani jihadist organisations". A video from the site posted on social media showed a fire raging around a damaged building. Bahawalpur is thought to host the headquarters of Jaish-e-Mohammed, another jihadist outfit with ties to Pakistani spooks.

India's decision to strike Punjab is an escalatory choice. But the third feature of the strikes is that everything else appears to have been calibrated to minimise the risk of a full-scale war. Pakistan says that India hit a mosque near Bahawalpur, and that seven people were killed in the attacks, including at least two children. But in a statement India said that its strikes were "focused, measured, and non-escalatory". It noted that it had not struck the Pakistani armed forces, nor economic or civilian targets, but only "known terror camps" from which attacks on India had been planned and directed. This suggests that India is eager to provide an off-ramp to Pakistan.

Pakistan's army said that the country would respond "at a time and place of its own choosing". It added: "The temporary pleasure of India will be replaced by enduring grief." The initial artillery and rocket fire directed at Indian positions over the line of control is likely to be the first part of Pakistan's riposte, but not the only one.

Pakistan's defence minister claimed, without evidence, that the country had downed five Indian jets. In 2019, it responded by conducting a retaliatory air strike. It has a large and diverse arsenal of conventional cruise and ballistic missiles, which it could fire into India without requiring jets to cross the border. But despite the heated rhetoric, Pakistan is likely to choose the scale and nature of its response with care, doing enough to placate its populace and restore a modicum of deterrence without escalating the crisis further. That might involve strikes against symbolic targets, which are unlikely to cause civilian or mass casualties.

In India, the mood was confident. "Justice is served," tweeted India's army, adding "Jai Hind"—long live India. The name given to the missile strikes—Operation Sindoor, a reference to the vermilion powder used in Indian weddings—appears to have been a nod to one of the victims of the massacre on 22 April, a recently married naval officer whose grieving widow has become a symbol of the atrocity.

India said that it briefed Marco Rubio, America's secretary of state, shortly after the attacks. But while at one time American officials might have rushed to defuse the crisis, now their appetite to get involved is less clear. Donald Trump, told of the strikes in the White House, responded with insouciance. "It's a shame," he said. "They've been fighting for many, many decades—centuries, actually. I just hope it ends very quickly."