CNN —
This week’s clashes between Pakistan and India are the most serious escalation in tensions between these two historic foes in decades with millions on both sides of their border now wondering what might come next.
Despite a vow to “avenge” India’s strikes on its territory, Pakistan has yet to retaliate in kind on India, and both sides appear to have already claimed victory. But hostilities continue.
Palpable panic rocked both nations Wednesday after New Delhi launched targeted military strikes on its neighbor, while Islamabad claimed it had shot down its rival’s fighter jets.
On Thursday, Pakistan claimed it downed at least 25 Indian loitering munition drones across the country overnight, in what it called a new “serious provocation” from New Delhi that wounded four of soldiers and killed a civilian. CNN cannot independently verify these claims and has reached out to the Indian Air Force and Ministry of Defense.
The fear is that each additional confrontational step by either side could quickly spiral into an all out conflict.
Indian media was euphoric after Wednesday’s strikes. “Strokes of justice,” ran an editorial from one of India’s leading English newspapers commending the country’s “sharp” and “resolute” response to the massacre of 26 people in Indian-administered Kashmir, at the hands of militants. A headline from The Indian Express echoed a similar tune: “Justice Served” it said across the front page.
In Pakistan, the public response from Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif was similarly bellicose.
He has vowed to “avenge” the deaths of 31 people Pakistan says were killed in India’s strikes but still appeared to declare triumph for its apparent shooting of India’s airplanes.
“It only took a few hours for the enemy to fall on its knees,” he said in a late-night address to the nation.
India says it struck “terrorist infrastructure” belonging to two Islamist groups – Lashkar-e-Tayyiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed – who have been accused of being behind some the deadliest militant attacks on the country. Wednesday’s strikes did not target military infrastructure and didn’t kill civilians, New Delhi said, potentially giving India and Pakistan an opportunity to find a way to avoid an all-out war.
One location India struck was deep in Pakistan’s Punjab province, the deepest attack in Pakistan’s undisputed territory since both countries fought a major war in 1971. It also targeted multiple other locations in Punjab – the heartland of the powerful military and home of the Sharif government – and hit a mosque, according to Pakistani officials, angering millions in the Muslim-majority nation.
What happens now, analysts say, mostly depends on Islamabad’s next move.
“All eyes are on Pakistan,” said Washington-based South Asia analyst, Michael Kugelman. “If it decides to save face and claim victory — perhaps by pointing to the downing of Indian jets (which New Delhi has not confirmed) — and call it a day, an off ramp could be in sight.”
But he warned “all bets would be off” should Pakistan decide to strike back.
