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Indian paramilitary soldiers patrol along a road in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, on April 29, 2025.
India and Pakistan inch toward a major clash
Nerves are fraught throughout Pakistan after authorities said Wednesday they have “credible intelligence” that India plans to launch military strikes on its soil by Friday, fueling fears of an outright clash between the two nuclear-armed archrivals. Troops from both sides have been exchanging fire in the disputed territory of Kashmir since a terrorist attack in the Indian-controlled section killed 26 civilians last Tuesday. Both China and the US are calling for restraint.
Tensions are spiraling rapidly. India closed its airspace to Pakistan on Wednesday and ordered nearly all Pakistani citizens to leave the country last week. Pakistan – while denying any involvement in the attacks – also canceled visas last week for most Indian citizens in retaliation. The scenes of rapid flight evoked painful memories of the 1947 Partition when Hindus in Pakistan and Muslims in India fled bloody ethnic massacres in the newly formed nations.
How bad could it get? The two countries have had two major wars, in 1965 and 1971, both of which India won, in the latter case quite decisively. In the ensuing decades, however, India has utterly outstripped Pakistan economically, militarily, and diplomatically, which means that Islamabad’s chances of prevailing in a conventional confrontation are very slim.
The balance of power shifted nonetheless when Pakistan developed nuclear weapons in 1972 to match those that India built in 1967. This has prevented a full-scale attack ever since. When the two sides went to war in 1999, hostilities lasted just over two months and were geographically limited to the Himalayas. If New Delhi should be foolish enough to existentially threaten its neighbor, it raises the grim – albeit unlikely – prospect of a nuclear exchange.
We’re watching for a limited engagement, but we’re far from sanguine about the risks.
People gather outside a hospital as more than 1,000 people, including Hezbollah fighters and medics, were wounded when the pagers they use to communicate exploded across Lebanon, according to a security source, in Beirut, Lebanon September 17, 2024.
Paging Hezbollah: Apparent Israeli attack wounds hundreds
People of a certain age will recall the metaphoric expression “blowing up my pager,” but this was something altogether more literal: On Tuesday at around 3:30 p.m. local time, pagers belonging to more than 2,800 people in Lebanon and Syria actually blew up, killing at least 12, including two children, and wounding thousands.
The pagers were reportedly used by affiliates of Hezbollah, the powerful, Iran-backed militant group and political party that is currently locked in a low-level war with Israel. The group recently bought the pagers to evade signal tracking. The victims, many of whom were reportedly civilians, included Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon, who was wounded.
Who did it? Lebanon and Hezbollah blame Israel, but Israeli authorities have not commented.
How does one even do this? There are two theories. One is a mass hack of the pagers, which forced their lithium batteries to overload until they spontaneously combusted. But some outlets are pointing to packing, not hacking: Israel's Mossad spy agency reportedly hid explosives inside the pagers, which were manufactured in Budapest by BAC Consulting. The Taiwan-based firm Gold Apollo licensed its brand out to BAC but firmly denies involvement in making the pagers. Either way, a stunning operation.
The attack is a strategic blow to Hezbollah’s communications, but also a psychological one. Hezbollah has sworn to retaliate. So far the group – and its Iranian patrons – have tried to avoid a wider conflict. But after Israel appears to have paged Hezbollah like this – how will the group respond?