Many killed as India, Pakistan fight with drones, missiles

Pakistan and India, on Thursday, May 8, 2025, accused each other of launching drone attacks, on the second day of major clashes between the nuclear-armed neighbours.

Pakistan said it shot down 25 drones from India, while India said its air defences had stopped Pakistani drone and missile attacks on military targets, dashing hopes they would soon bow to pressure to end their worst confrontation in more than two decades.

World powers from the United States to Russia and China have called for calm in one of the world’s most dangerous and most populated nuclear flashpoint regions. The U.S. Consulate General in Pakistan’s Lahore ordered staff to shelter in place.

Thursday’s reported exchanges came a day after India said it hit nine “terrorist infrastructure” sites in Pakistan in retaliation for what it says was a deadly Islamabad-backed attack in Indian Kashmir on April 22.

Pakistan said it was not involved and denied that any of the sites hit by India were militant bases. It said it shot down five Indian aircraft on Wednesday, a report the Indian embassy in Beijing dismissed as “misinformation”.

Indian strikes kill 26, injure 46 in Pakistan

Pakistani retaliation “is increasingly becoming certain now,” Pakistan’s Defence Minister, Khawaja Muhammad Asif, told Reuters.

“I will still refrain from saying it is 100%. But the situation has become very difficult. We have to respond,” Asif added.

The relationship between India and Pakistan has been fraught with tension since they gained independence from colonial Britain in 1947. The countries have fought three wars, two of them over Kashmir, and clashed many times.

The countries that both claim Kashmir in full and rule over parts of it separately acquired nuclear weapons in the 1990s.

On Thursday, Indian government ministers told a meeting of political parties in New Delhi that the strikes on Pakistan had killed more than 100 militants and that the count was still ongoing.

Pakistan’s Information Minister Attaullah Tarar told parliament that Pakistani forces had killed 40-50 Indian soldiers on the de-facto border in Kashmir and “blown” Indian military installations.

The Star