{"id":7123,"date":"2025-05-02T12:25:51","date_gmt":"2025-05-02T12:25:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/2025\/05\/02\/us-urges-restraint-as-kashmir-massacre-tensions-put-india-and-pakistan-on-edge\/"},"modified":"2025-05-02T12:25:51","modified_gmt":"2025-05-02T12:25:51","slug":"us-urges-restraint-as-kashmir-massacre-tensions-put-india-and-pakistan-on-edge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/2025\/05\/02\/us-urges-restraint-as-kashmir-massacre-tensions-put-india-and-pakistan-on-edge\/","title":{"rendered":"US urges restraint as Kashmir massacre tensions put India and Pakistan on edge"},"content":{"rendered":"

The United States is stepping up pressure on India and Pakistan to avoid conflict in Kashmir after a tourist massacre in an Indian-administered area of the divided territory last week. <\/p>\n

US Vice President JD Vance said Thursday that Washington hopes Pakistan will help hunt down the militants behind the attack, who are based in Pakistan-controlled territory. <\/p>\n

And Vance urged India, which has accused Pakistan of being involved in the attack, to act with restraint so tensions do not explode into a war between the nuclear-armed neighbors. <\/p>\n

\u201cOur hope here is that India responds to this terrorist attack in a way that doesn\u2019t lead to a broader regional conflict,\u201d Vance said in an interview on Fox News\u2019 \u201cSpecial Report with Bret Baier.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd we hope, frankly, that Pakistan, to the extent that they\u2019re responsible, cooperates with India to make sure that the terrorists sometimes operating in their territory are hunted down and dealt with.\u201d <\/p>\n

Vance\u2019s comments echoed those of US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who on Wednesday spoke with top Pakistani and Indian officials and called on the two rivals to work with each other to \u201cde-escalate tensions,\u201d according to State Department readouts of the two calls. <\/p>\n

Rubio \u201cexpressed his sorrow for the lives lost in the horrific terrorist attack in Pahalgam, and reaffirmed the United States\u2019 commitment to cooperation with India against terrorism,\u201d in his call with Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar. <\/p>\n

In his call with Pakistan\u2019s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Rubio \u201cspoke of the need to condemn the terror attack on April 22,\u201d and urged Pakistani officials\u2019 cooperation in the investigation. <\/p>\n

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\u201cBoth leaders reaffirmed their continued commitment to holding terrorists accountable for their heinous acts of violence,\u201d the readout said. <\/p>\n

Fears of a broader conflict increased earlier this week when Pakistani Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said his country had \u201ccredible intelligence that India intends carrying out military action against Pakistan in the next 24-36 hours.\u201d <\/p>\n

That timeframe has now passed. <\/p>\n

Militants on April 22 massacred 26 civilians, the vast majority tourists, in the mountainous town of Pahalgam in Indian-administered Kashmir, a rampage that has sparked widespread outrage. <\/p>\n

India and Pakistan have since engaged in tit-for-tat hostilities. <\/p>\n

India closed its airspace to commercial flights from Pakistan on Tuesday, matching Islamabad\u2019s ban on flights from India, which was imposed last week in response to New Delhi\u2019s cancelation of visas for Pakistani nationals and suspension of a key water sharing treaty. <\/p>\n

This week, New Delhi and Islamabad have both been flexing their military might. <\/p>\n

Two days earlier, India\u2019s navy said it had carried out test missile strikes to \u201crevalidate and demonstrate readiness of platforms, systems and crew for long range precision offensive strike.\u201d <\/p>\n

Tensions have also been simmering along the de facto border, the Line of Control, in Kashmir, and gunfire was exchanged along the disputed border for seven straight nights. <\/p>\n

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A policeman stands guard at a checkpoint along a street in Srinagar on May 1, 2025.<\/span> <\/div>
Basit Zargar\/AFP\/Middle East Images\/Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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An Indian Border Security Force (BSF) soldier stands guard near the India-Pakistan Wagah border post, about 35 kilometers from Amritsar, on May 1, 2025.<\/span> <\/div>
Narinder Nanu\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

A history of conflict<\/h2>\n

Kashmir, one of the world\u2019s most dangerous flashpoints, is controlled in part by India and Pakistan but both countries claim it in its entirety. <\/p>\n

The two nuclear-armed rivals have fought three wars over the mountainous territory that has been divided since their independence from Britain nearly 80 years ago. <\/p>\n

India conducted airstrikes inside Pakistan in 2019 following a major insurgent attack on paramilitary personnel inside Indian-administered Kashmir. It was the first such incursion into Pakistan\u2019s territory since a 1971 war between the two neighbors. <\/p>\n

The latest attack on tourists in Kashmir has sparked fears that India might respond in a similar way. <\/p>\n

Conditions may be ripe for greater conflict now than was seen in 2019, according to Steven Honig and Natalie Caloca, researchers at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). <\/p>\n

Writing on the CFR website, the two said Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has \u201cmade the transformation and stabilization of Kashmir a central pillar of his legacy\u201d <\/p>\n

They said Modi was hurt politically by the 2019 attacks inside Indian-administer Kashmir and will likely feel pressure to be more assertive with New Delhi\u2019s response this time. <\/p>\n

Military numbers favor India<\/h2>\n

Both countries are heavily armed, though in any conventional conflict, India holds a large advantage. <\/p>\n

The Indian defense budget is more than nine times Pakistan\u2019s, according to the \u201cMilitary Balance 2025\u201d from the International Institute for Strategic Studies. <\/p>\n

That budget supports an active-duty Indian force of almost 1.5 million personnel, compared to just 660,000 for Pakistan. <\/p>\n

On the ground, India\u2019s 1.2 million force army has 3,750 main battle tanks and more than 10,000 artillery pieces, while Pakistan\u2019s tank force is only two-thirds of India\u2019s and Islamabad has fewer than half of the artillery pieces in New Delhi\u2019s arsenal. <\/p>\n

At sea, the Indian navy\u2019s advantage is overwhelming. It has two aircraft carriers, 12 guided-missile destroyers, 11 guided-missile frigates and 16 attack submarines. <\/p>\n

Pakistan has no carriers and no guided-missile destroyers, with 11 smaller guided-missile frigates being the backbone of its naval fleet. It also has only half the number of subs that India fields. <\/p>\n

Both air forces rely heavily on older Soviet-era aircraft, including MiG-21s in India and the Chinese equivalent \u2013 the J-7 \u2013 in Pakistan. <\/p>\n

While overall numbers of air-to-air fighter jets and ground-attack aircraft sway heavily in India\u2019s favor, both militaries have been making recent efforts to update their air forces with modern fourth-generation aircraft. <\/p>\n

India has been investing in multirole French-made Rafale jets, with 36 now in service, according to the Military Balance. <\/p>\n

Pakistan has been adding Chinese J-10 multirole jets, with more than 20 now in its fleet. <\/p>\n

Though Pakistan still has dozens of US-made F-16 fighters, the backbone of its fleet has become the JF-17, a joint project with China that came online in the early 2000s. About 150 are in service. <\/p>\n

Despite acquiring the Rafales from France, Russian-made aircraft still play a significant role in India\u2019s air fleet. More than 100 MiG-29 fighters are in service with the air force and navy combined. And more than 260 Su-30 ground attack jets bolster India\u2019s force. <\/p>\n

The rivals are closer in capabilities when it comes to nuclear forces \u2013 with around five dozen surface-to-surface launchers each \u2013 though India has longer range ballistic missiles than Pakistan. <\/p>\n

India also has two nuclear-capable submarines while Pakistan has none. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

This post appeared first on cnn.com<\/div>\n

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The United States is stepping up pressure on India and Pakistan to avoid conflict in Kashmir after a tourist massacre in an Indian-administered area of the divided territory last week. US Vice President JD Vance…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7124,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[118],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7123"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7123\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}