With cricket suspended matches, energy falls, and air strike sirens, fears are swelling a total war between India and Pakistan in the midst of a mediator role that the United States can play.
Nuclear armed neighbors were involved in their worst fighting in decades on Wednesday, when India launched an attack on Pakistan in response to a deadly terrorist attack by which New Delhi guilt Islamabad.
Nearly four dozens of people were killed in initial violence between the two countries, including India’s strikes about what they claimed to be “terrorist fields” and the bombing in response by Pakistan, which denies involvement in April 22 attack in the disputed Himalayan region of Caxemira.
Pakistan has won the partial victory, saying it knocked down five Indian fighters and dozens of drones, which India has not confirmed. India said it does not want to increase, but will respond firmly if Pakistan reaches its territory.
Both countries accused of continuing to launch new attacks on Friday, including the bombing of cities near its border in fact that Pakistan said killed five civilians. The Indian army also said that “he effectively repelled” Pakistan drone attacks, which denied the allegation.
Residents have fled their homes in the midst of transfronical violence near the actually border in Caxemira, which India and Pakistan claim in full and control in part.
Tensions also increased to the cricket, a dear sport in both countries. The Indian Premier League, which is among the richest sports leagues in the world, was suspended for a week on Friday amid safety concerns after a match was interrupted amid turbulence.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke with authorities in both countries on Thursday in the last US effort to relieve tensions.
Speaking of India’s Foreign Minister, S. Jaishankar, Rubio reiterated his condolences about the April 22 terrorist attack at India -managed cashmire, which killed 26 people, most of them Indian tourists. He also “reaffirmed the United States’s commitment to work with India in the fight against terrorism,” the state department said.
In his call with the first Pakistani minister Shehbaz Sharif, Rubio “expressed sadness for the reported loss of civil lives in the current conflict,” said the state department, and “reiterated his requests for Pakistan to take concrete measures to end any support for terrorist groups.”
Speaking to NBC News, an official source of the Indian government dismissed the idea of the US or any other country playing a central mediator, saying that problems were bilateral and that the message of any government to Pakistan should stop supporting terrorism. The source said the strikes of India aimed at terrorist infrastructure and followed 15 days of waiting for the Pakistani government to take their own measures against militant groups.
An official source of the Pakistani government called the strikes of India “the final act of provocation.” The source said that the actions taken by Pakistan so far are in self -defense and that Pakistan reserves the right to respond to strikes on its soil.
Pakistan requested an international investigation “neutral” about Caxemira’s attack, and the government’s source said “there was no drop of evidence” that Islamabad had supported him.
President Donald Trump did not directly get involved with the leaders of India and Pakistan, but said on Wednesday he wants to “see them solve this” and “if I can do anything to help, I’ll be there.”
Lisa Curtis, an expert in southern Asia at the Washington American Security Center, said the Trump government has sent mixed signs to both countries and needs to “clean” their public messages.
Trump initially said that the US would not get involved in the crisis, and on Thursday, Vice President Jd Vance told Fox News: “Let’s not get involved in the middle of a war that is fundamentally none of our business.”
Rubio made measurements measures asking for reduced tensions, while Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said India had the right to defend herself.
The US previously played a fundamental role in the debt of conflict between India and Pakistan, said Curtis, who was senior director of South Asia and central to the National Security Council from 2017 to 2021. But US relations with Pakistan has deteriorated in recent years, questioning Washington’s influence with Islamabad.
The US left the door open to support Pakistan’s appeal for further investigation into the terrorist attack.
“We want the authors to be held responsible and we support any effort for this purpose,” said Tammy Bruce State Department Gate to reporters on Thursday.
India responded to the attack by launching military attacks on “Terror Campos” in Pakistan on Wednesday, which, according to Pakistan, killed 31 people, including civilians. Pakistan immediately claimed the partial victory by saying it knocked down five Indian fighters and dozens of drones, which India has not confirmed.
The April 22 attack was the worst of its kind in Indian civilians in two decades and ended years of separatist insurgency and bitter resentment between the two neighbors over Caxemira, an ancient Princesco state and the only part of the Muslim majority of India that ceded India’s territory in 1947, when the British colonial government was over.
Since then, Pakistan and India have fought for three of its multiple wars over it, and India has long been supporting Pakistan for supporting transfronist terrorism that Islamabad denies. Both countries now claim cashmire in full, but only partially control.
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