India-Pakistan Conflict Escalates Sharply With Attacks on Military Bases

President Trump announced Saturday that India and Pakistan had agreed to a cease-fire.

The fighting between India and Pakistan intensified sharply on Saturday with both sides targeting air bases and blaming each other for striking first, as the United States again called on both sides to de-escalate.

Pakistan said India had targeted at least three of its air bases with air-to-surface missiles in the early hours of Saturday, including Nur Khan, a key air force installation near the capital, Islamabad. Witnesses in the city of Rawalpindi, where Nur Khan is located, reported hearing at least three loud explosions, with one describing a “large fireball” visible from miles away.

Within hours, Pakistan said it had retaliated using short-range surface-to-surface missiles against several locations in India, including the Udhampur and Pathankot air bases and a missile storage facility. “An eye for an eye,” the Pakistani military said in a statement.

India, however, also described its action on Saturday as retaliation. The Indian military said it had struck several Pakistani military targets, two of them radar sites, in response to a wave of Pakistani attacks on 26 locations using drones, long-range weapons and fighter planes. There was “limited damage” to equipment and personnel at four Indian air force bases, Vyomika Singh, an Indian Air Force officer, said at a news conference on Saturday.

“It is Pakistani actions that have constituted provocation and escalation,” said India’s foreign secretary, Vikram Misri. “In response, India has defended and reacted in a responsible and measured fashion.”