epubdos : Afghanistan
SCA MORNING PRESS CLIPS
Prepared for the U.S. Department of State
Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs
TO:
SCA & Staff
DATE:
Wednesday, May 7, 2025 6:30 AM ET

Afghanistan
Can’t Go Forward, Can’t Go Back: Afghan Refugees Stuck in Qatar Wait for a Way Forward (AP)
AP [5/6/2025 11:01 PM, Rebecca Santana and Farnoush Amiri, 24727K]
Negina Khalili’s family sold their house and possessions in Afghanistan and flew to a U.S. base in Qatar in January, preparing for the last step in emigrating to America. Thirteen days later, the Trump administration took office — and suspended the refugee program that would have let them in.

Now they are among a small group of Afghans who advocates say are waiting at a camp in Qatar for permission to one day come to America.

"If they send them back to Afghanistan," Khalili said, "that will be a huge risk for my family.".

When President Donald Trump returned to the White House, among the numerous immigration-related executive orders he signed was one suspending the country’s refugee program. Thousands of people around the world suddenly found their path cut off — people who had been hoping to emigrate to America through a program that over decades has helped people fleeing war, persecution and strife to come to the United States.

Now they wait and hope.

For those waiting in Qatar, clarity fades

For a small group of Afghans in Qatar, it was especially jarring. They had traveled there before Trump took office, then found themselves stuck with little clarity on what would happen to them in the future, advocates and sources familiar with the situation say.

Shawn VanDiver, the head of #AfghanEvac, an advocacy group that works to help Afghans who offered assistance during America’s two-decade-long war in Afghanistan emigrate to America, said about 1,200 Afghan refugees are at the base in Qatar. That figure was confirmed by a State Department official who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

"We brought them there. And it’s on us to figure out what to do with them next. The only right answer is to follow through on what was promised," VanDiver said.

When the Taliban retook power in Afghanistan in August 2021, the U.S. airlifted out tens of thousands of Afghans who’d supported the American efforts. It was a chaotic withdrawal: Desperate Afghans thronged Kabul’s airport hoping for a way out. In the years that followed, as the issue fell from the headlines, the Biden administration continued to relocate tens of thousands of Afghans right up until Biden left office.

There are two main ways Afghans can emigrate to America. The classic example is the military translator who worked directly for the U.S. government and qualifies for the special immigrant visa. Afghans who don’t meet those guidelines but who assisted America’s efforts in Afghanistan and are at risk for it can be referred to refugee programs.

They usually come to the United States through a network of "lilypads" set up under the Biden administration in a few countries around the world. Afghans who passed key steps in a lengthy process to emigrate would travel to these "lilypads" to finish their processing and eventually journey onward to the United States.

In Qatar, they’re housed in a former U.S. military base now run by the State Department. They can’t go off the base unless escorted by a U.S. official.

Many refugees are now shut out

Since Trump returned to office, Afghans can still come through the special immigrant visa process, although they have to pay their own way or get help. But Afghan refugees have been shut out after Trump suspended the program. In Qatar, that has meant waiting and worrying. Similar concerns are playing out in Pakistan, where the Pakistani government has been aggressively pushing Afghan refugees to return home.

One of those in Qatar is Saliha. She’s an Afghan lawyer and part of a generation of women who grew up after the U.S. invasion. These women could go to school and college, and get jobs that took them out into the world.

She opened her own law firm and helped abused women get divorces. After the Taliban retook control, she and her family went into hiding, and she was referred to the refugee program two years ago. Around that time, the Taliban had been going around to her father’s house, trying to find her and saying: "Your daughter helped our wives leave us." Saliha gave only her first name out of concern for her safety if she and her family were to return to Afghanistan.

She and her family arrived in the Qatar camp in January, hopeful they’d soon be in America. Then came the refugee program suspension.

Saliha said there are classes for the Afghan children, and a park where the kids can play. The men go to the gym together and play soccer; the women often gather to socialize.

She tries to be positive, although she’s heard about other Afghans whose resettlement applications were denied and were given a month to leave the base. That hasn’t happened to her and her family, and she says they’re well-treated. But as they wait for progress, she’s worried.

"We worked hard and sacrificed a lot. We did nothing wrong," Saliha said. "Our only sin is helping the women of Afghanistan, defend women who had been abused and raped.".

The program is suspended indefinitely, for now

It’s not clear if the Trump administration will resume the refugee program. Right now, it’s suspended indefinitely. Trump requested a report looking at whether to resume it, but those results haven’t been made public.

Advocates for the Afghan refugees stress how much vetting they go through before actually getting to America, and what they did to contribute to the U.S. mission in Afghanistan. VanDiver said within that group of 1,200 in Qatar are 200 relatives of U.S. service members.

Groups that help to resettle refugees have sued to restart the refugee program. An appeals court said the government was within its authority to suspend it, but that a small subset of already-approved refugees should be allowed in.

The administration argued that the already-approved number amounted to only about 160 people worldwide. But Monday, a judge put the number at roughly 12,000 and ordered the government to admit them. It’s not clear how many Afghans are included in this group or how quickly the government will move to comply.

In a statement, the State Department said it was "actively considering the future of our Afghan relocation program" as well as the office specifically tasked with coordinating Afghan relocation efforts.

"No final decisions have been made," the department said. It also said it continues to provide support to "Afghan allies and partners" overseas.

In the meantime, Afghans trying to get to the United States — and those waiting for them here — wait and worry.

Khalili, a former prosecutor in Afghanistan, fled in the 2021 withdrawal. She worries about what will happen to her father, brother and stepmother and whether they’ll be forced back to Afghanistan. They message back and forth daily.

"They are facing a lot of depression and they don’t know what will happen," she said. "Every day, I am thinking about my family.".
Taliban Earning Billions, Giving American Weaponry to Terrorist Groups as Afghanistan Once Again Becomes Jihadi Hotbed: Report (Washington Free Beacon)
Washington Free Beacon [5/6/2025 5:00 AM, Adam Kredo, 475K]
The Taliban took in $3.4 billion in revenue over the last year, boosting its cash supply by 14 percent amid the return of Afghanistan as a central safe haven for terrorist organizations across the Middle East, according to a U.S. government watchdog group.

The repercussions of the Biden administration’s disastrous 2021 military withdrawal from Afghanistan continue to reverberate across the war-torn country, with multiple al Qaeda affiliates accessing American-supplied "weapons seized from the former Afghan National Army," according to a new oversight report by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR).

The United States left 78 aircraft, 40,000 military vehicles, and over 300,000 weapons in Afghanistan in a withdrawal that saw 13 American service members lose their lives. According to the SIGAR report—which the watchdog group delivered to Congress on April 30—the Taliban transferred many of these arms directly to terrorist affiliates, while others made their way to the black market.

The Pentagon assesses that of around $18.6 billion worth of U.S. equipment provided to the Afghan Army over decades of support, $7.12 billion in weaponry remains in the Taliban’s possession. As a result, "terrorist groups continued to operate in and from Afghanistan amid ongoing U.S., UN, and regional concerns that the country remains a terrorist haven.".

More than two dozen terrorist organizations are currently active in Afghanistan, including the Islamic State-affiliated Khorasan Province (ISIS-K) and Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). At least four al Qaeda offshoots are also using the country to organize operations. "Terrorist groups," SIGAR reported, "continued to use Afghan soil to train and plan attacks and a ‘small but steady’ flow of foreign terrorists continued to travel to Afghanistan and join one of over two dozen terror groups based there.".

The findings come just months after the Trump administration terminated virtually all U.S.-funded assistance programs in Afghanistan, citing the Taliban’s ability to steal millions annually in American taxpayer cash. The Biden-Harris administration pumped nearly $4 billion into Afghanistan after the Taliban retook control of the country, with several million in previously allocated funds continuing to flow up until March 31 of this year. During much of this time, SIGAR repeatedly exposed instances of fraud, waste, and mismanagement that plagued U.S. aid efforts after the Taliban took power.

The White House reversed course earlier this year when it dissolved the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the primary organization pumping taxpayer cash into Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.

While the Trump administration initially attempted to preserve emergency food assistance programs inside the country, the State Department ultimately froze them in early April, citing "Taliban interference" in the delivery of humanitarian aid. The agency nixed several other "cash-based assistance" programs around the same time "given concerns about misuse and a lack of appropriate accountability," State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce said.

SIGAR discovered last year that American aid partners on the ground in Afghanistan paid the Taliban at least $10.9 million in various fees.

The State Department terminated funding for all but 2 of the 24 U.S. programs inside Afghanistan, saving American taxpayers more than $1 billion through the end of 2025, according to SIGAR. The two remaining aid initiatives support Afghan students studying online or at universities outside the country.

The billion-dollar list of now-canceled grants runs the gamut from those fostering "integrated youth activity" to others bolstering "civic activists, human rights defenders, and journalists" inside Afghanistan.

The State Department had previously allocated $80 million to Afghan farmers to improve "efficiency" and strengthen "knowledge of smart cultivation and production practices" and another $80 million for "equitable access to quality education for boys and girls," the SIGAR report shows.

Despite the significant investment in girls’ education from the United States, the Taliban has not softened its stance on the issue, largely barring girls from attending schools and preventing women from working in most jobs.

Other funding initiatives included a $62-million program meant to "empower Afghan youth, particularly girls and young women, by equipping them with market-relevant technical and soft skills, and enhancing economic resilience and food security" and a $14.9-million grant with the purpose of creating "jobs within the carpet-weaving and jewelry industries by providing development assistance to micro-, small-, and medium-sized enterprises in Afghanistan.".

SIGAR, the central U.S.-Afghanistan oversight authority since 2008, will cease its operations early next year as the Trump administration brings aid to the country to an end.
Taliban Demands Seat at U.N. After Nearly 4 Years of Uncontested Rule (Breitbart)
Breitbart [5/6/2025 3:58 PM, Frances Martel, 2923K]
A top diplomat representing the Taliban terror organization ruling Afghanistan demanded representation for the group at the United Nations this week, insisting the Taliban’s participation in the global organization was a "necessity and a right.".

Suhail Shaheen, who has represented the Taliban in negotiations with the U.N. in the past and now runs the group’s embassy in Qatar, noted that the Taliban has been the uncontested government of Afghanistan for nearly four years and insisted that the group deserves some say in the operations of the United Nations.

"The presence of a representative from the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan at the United Nations is both a necessity and a right of the Islamic Emirate’s government," Shaheen told the Afghan Tolo News outlet in remarks published on Sunday. "Through such a representative, solutions to various issues can be pursued.".

The Taliban formally refers to itself as the "Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan" to distinguish itself from the former, legitimate government of the country, the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. It has not been officially recognized as the legitimate government of the country by any state actor since it toppled the Afghan government on August 15, 2021, when its members stormed Kabul, the nation’s capital, and sent then-President Ashraf Ghani fleeing in a helicopter.

While no country officially identifies the Taliban as a government body, multiple nations have accepted Taliban rule as a form of "interim" government to allow for trade and other negotiations with the terrorists. The rogue regimes of Iran and China were among the first to adopt the "interim" moniker and rapidly pursue joint business operations, particularly in the fields of mining and resource development. Internationally, the Taliban has struggled to obtain control of every Afghan embassy and consulate around the world, prying them out of the control of Ghani-era officials one by one. As of September, the Taliban boasted that it controls 39 Afghan missions around the world, all of which are allegedly "fully operating.".

"Calling for the international community and the United Nations to assess Afghanistan based on its current realities, Mawlawi Muttaqi urged for a more pragmatic approach to diplomatic relations with the Islamic Emirate," the Taliban-run Bakhtar News Agency reported at the time, citing a local official.

The Taliban ruled the country for years in the 1990s before the United States invasion in response to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Extensive evidence indicates that its members still maintain a relationship with Al Qaeda, the jihadist group responsible for the attacks. The head of Al Qaeda, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, was killed by a U.S. airstrike in Kabul in 2022 and reportedly lived openly in the nation’s capital, offered lodging by "Interior Minister" Sirajuddin Haqqani.

The ongoing relationship with Al Qaeda is one of several reasons the United Nations has yet to offer the Taliban regime representation in its fora, despite welcoming similarly bloodthirsty regimes such as those of North Korea, Iran, or China. Currently, the representatives of Afghanistan at the United Nations are diplomats representing the no-longer-existing Ghani government who have lobbied the U.N. for years not to replace them with the Taliban’s chosen envoys.

The U.N. has attempted to balance the dueling demands by engaging with the Taliban through its special Afghanistan office, the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), and inviting Taliban representatives to some of its events. While keeping the Ghani government’s diplomats, the U.N. Security Council approved of state actors working in "close consultation with all relevant Afghan political actors and stakeholders," without exempting the Taliban, in March 2022.

In one particularly shocking episode, the U.N. invited Taliban terrorists to COP29, the 29th edition of its annual climate alarmism talks. There, Taliban environment official Matiul Haq Khalis asserted that the jihadists "must participate in such conferences in the future" because Afghanistan is vulnerable to climate change.

"We participated in the conference this year so that we could raise the voice of the nation about the issues we are facing, what the needs of the people are, we must share these things with the world," he asserted.

UNAMA is currently in the process of what it has deemed a "mosaic" approach towards restructuring its relationship with the Taliban, nearly four years after it installed itself as the ruling entity of Afghanistan. According to the country’s Amu TV, the plan has outraged representatives of the former Afghanistan at the U.N. and human rights activists as its proposes "lifting sanctions on the Taliban, granting the group access to frozen Afghan assets, and potentially transferring control of Afghan diplomatic missions — including its seat at the United Nations — to the Taliban as part of broader political engagement.".

"Any framework aimed at granting concessions or normalizing relations with the Taliban," the current head of Afghanistan’s U.N. mission in New York Nasir Ahmad Faiq warned, "especially those drafted without transparency, enforcement mechanisms, or meaningful change in Afghanistan’s political and social situation—will not be acceptable to the Afghan people.".

It is unclear what the Afghan people, imprisoned under an extreme fundamentalist sharia system, can do to express their disapproval, if Faiq’s assessment is correct. In addition to its years of battle experience during the American occupation, the Taliban inherited a trove of advanced American weaponry, defense technology, and fuel when President Joe Biden extended the 20-year Afghan War and then abruptly withdrew U.S. troops, abandoning the former Bagram air base. Support from China and Iran has also fortified the Taliban’s position. No reports indicate that a viable opposition movement to the Taliban exists in the country.
Pakistan
On Pakistan’s Side of Kashmir, Locals Fear They’ll Be the First to Face India’s Ire (New York Times)
New York Times [5/6/2025 4:14 PM, Zia ur-Rehman and Jalaluddin Mughal, 831K]
Families are reinforcing their bunkers and confirming evacuation plans. Hospitals have stocked up on essential medicines. Schoolchildren are being trained on the essentials of first aid.

All across the Pakistani-held section of Kashmir, there is an air of emergency, a persistent trepidation as the threat of military confrontation looms.

“God willing, nothing will happen,” said Azeem Gilani, a baker in Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani-administered Kashmir. “We have seen this before. But if, God forbid, the situation worsens, Kashmiris on both sides will suffer.”

Since a terrorist attack two weeks ago on the Indian-administered side of Kashmir left 26 innocent people dead, Kashmiris have tried to prepare for what seems like an inevitable military escalation between India and Pakistan. Both countries claim Kashmir in its entirety, but each controls only a section. The beautiful Himalayan territory has been the main flashpoint of conflict between the archrival nations for almost 80 years.

Soon after the attack, Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India pledged “severe punishment” for the perpetrators and suggested that Pakistan had been involved. In turn, Pakistan claimed that it had “credible intelligence” suggesting an imminent Indian military strike, and its leaders promised a strong response to any aggression.

Kashmiris on the Pakistani-controlled side of the territory fear they could be in the first line of fire. Past conflicts between India and Pakistan have often begun with confrontation along the border between the two sides of Kashmir, known as the “line of control.”

“It is not new for us,” said Tanzeel Ahmed, who runs a grocery store in a village near Athmuqam, two miles from the border. “We have lived through this before.”

Like many in the villages and towns adjacent to the line of control, Mr. Ahmed has reinforced his mud-walled underground bunker, stocked essential supplies and drawn up plans to evacuate if shelling begins. But not everyone in the area has enough money for such precautions.

“Preparing for conflict is not just about fear,” Mr. Ahmed said. “It is about whether you can afford to survive it.”

Many in Kashmir make their living from the tourism industry or related fields. The tourism season would typically have just begun, around the start of May, as temperatures rise farther south.

Official data indicates that over three million tourists visited the region last year. But this year’s prospects are grim.

Local authorities have restricted access to sensitive border areas, significantly reducing the flow of visitors. Many vacationers have canceled their plans. Others have been turned back at security checkpoints. Once-bustling sites, like a popular waterfall known for its tea stalls and photo opportunities, are nearly deserted.

“Tourism is our economic backbone,” said Shahid Chaudhary, a guesthouse owner. “All 42 rooms are vacant, and we’ve had to let our staff go. The losses are devastating.”

In Muzaffarabad, officials have instructed the food department to stockpile emergency food supplies for two months in anticipation of a possible attack by India.

While regular schools have, so far, stayed open, local authorities have ordered hundreds of religious seminaries, known as madrassas, to close for at least 10 days. Officials said the madrassas, which provide Islamic education and teach children to memorize the Quran, could be viewed as militant training centers and targeted by Indian airstrikes, as they have been in the past.

“We were instructed by authorities to temporarily close the madrasa due to the prevailing security situation,” said Muhammad Rafiq, a teacher at a madrasa in Muzaffarabad where 150 children study.

Home to more than four million people, the Pakistani-administered part of Kashmir covers about 86,000 square miles and operates under a semiautonomous framework with its own legislature, president, prime minister and Supreme Court. But all election candidates and officials must sign a loyalty pledge to Pakistan, a requirement that underscores the country’s influence over the region’s political structure.

Conflict over the region began in 1947 when Britain divided India, its former colony, into two countries: Pakistan, with a Muslim majority, and India, with a Hindu majority.

Both new countries claimed Kashmir, but the region’s Hindu ruler acceded to India. War broke out. After a cease-fire in 1949, India was left governing about two-thirds of the territory, and Pakistan the other third.

Over the next several decades, Kashmir and its people were deeply scarred by wars between India and Pakistan. As insurgency against India began to rise in the territory in the 1980s, Pakistan stepped in with money and training.

The violence moderated for a time in the 2000s. But political developments over the last few years — and the uncertainty set off by last month’s terrorist attack — could be fostering a revival of insurgency and political disruption, analysts say.

At a central intersection in Muzaffarabad on Monday, a group of activists staged a protest, burning tires to demonstrate their anger at what they called India’s baseless allegations over the recent terror attack, and its threats of war.

“Kashmir, burning across the L.O.C., belongs to Pakistan,” said Mushtaq Dar, a leader of the protest, referring to the line of control.

After the Indian government cracked down on its side of Kashmir in 2019, revoking the region’s semiautonomous status, a wave of protests broke out in the Pakistani-controlled region, as residents feared a similar tightening of restrictions.

That discontent has “evolved into a popular civil rights movement demanding more rights from the central government in Islamabad, achieving tangible gains like reductions in electricity and wheat prices,” said Ershad Mahmud, an expert on Kashmir who recently wrote a book on the politics of identity and resistance in Poonch, a Kashmiri district divided by the line of control.

Raja Farooq Haider Khan, a former prime minister whose region includes villages that have frequently been shelled, said that residents would bring that same attitude to whatever confrontation might come between India and Pakistan. He said that although Kashmiris have always opposed war, they have never shied away from standing up for their rights.

“If war is imposed,” he said, “they will fight to defend their land with unwavering resolve, until their last breath.”
Islamist terrorist who plotted to attack iconic shopping centre and nightclub with ‘dirty bomb’ is deported to Pakistan (Daily Mail)
Daily Mail [5/6/2025 7:31 AM, Andy Gardner, 62527K]
One of the UK’s most dangerous terrorists who was jailed for life over a plot to bomb the Bluewater shopping centre has been deported to Pakistan.

Jawad Akbar, 23, plotted to blow up Bluewater shopping centre in Kent, bomb the Ministry of Sound nightclub in London and set off a radioactive ‘dirty’ bomb.

The 2004 attacks would have caused huge damage and could have killed hundreds of innocent people.

Akbar, from Crawley, West Sussex, was sentenced to life in April 2007 after being found guilty of conspiracy to cause explosions.

He was given a minimum term of 17-and-a-half years.

In July 2022, the Parole Board deemed him too dangerous to be released. One of the main considerations was that the UK could not be sure that Akbar would be adequately supervised if he was deported.

Akbar’s minimum jail term ended in September 2021 and he should have been eligible for a second parole hearing sometime in 2023.

However, MailOnline has discovered this did not happen and he was deported to Pakistan in the last year.

The Home Office confirmed that Akbar, now 41, was deported.

It is believed this went ahead under a joint ‘returns agreement’ scheme signed in 2019 by the Conservative government and Pakistan.

The then Home Secretary Priti Patel said the legislation would be used to return foreign criminals and immigration offenders from the UK to Pakistan.

She said at the time: ‘I make no apology for removing dangerous foreign criminals and immigration offenders who have no right to remain in the UK.

‘The British public have quite rightly had enough of people abusing our laws and gaming the system so we can’t remove them.’

The Home Office refuses to comment on individual cases and declined to elaborate on the reasons why the committed terrorist was allowed to return to Pakistan, where he was born.

In a statement, a Home Office spokesperson said: ‘Any foreign national who is convicted of a crime and given a prison sentence is considered for deportation at the earliest opportunity.’

The Home Office had originally tried to deport him to Italy, where his father has citizenship.

It is believed the family first moved to Italy after leaving Pakistan.

Akbar was part of a five strong British born or British resident gang of Pakistani heritage linked to Al-Qaeda in Pakistan.

Waheed Mahmood, 35, Omar Khyam, 25, Anthony Garcia, 24, Salahuddin Amin, 32, were the other defendants in the 2006 trial. All five were handed life sentences.

During the trial it was revealed the gang were poised to attack the shopping centre with a massive device, made for just £100 containing ammonium nitrate and aluminium powder.

The home-made bomb was made from household ingredients, inspired by the Oklahoma City bomber Tim McVeigh, who killed 168 people with an almost identical device in 1995.

At the time, judge Sir Michael Astill QC, said: ‘All of you were determined to cause indiscriminate death, injury and suffering of unsuspecting and innocent members of the community.’

‘This was demonstrated by the discussions that took place about where improvised devices could be placed, such as the Bluewater retail complex and the Ministry of Sound.

‘These are examples of sites where numerous members of the public congregated and became vulnerable targets.

‘They demonstrate the scale of horror, which you were prepared to inflict and would have inflicted but for the intervention of the security services and the police.’

Waheed Mahmood and Anthony Garcia were freed on parole in 2024. Salahuddin Amin had a parole request turned down in February 2024.
India
India and U.K. Strike Trade Deal Amid Global Tariff Upheaval (New York Times)
New York Times [5/6/2025 4:14 PM, Eshe NelsonStephen Castle and Alex Travelli, 831K]
Britain and India agreed to a trade deal on Tuesday, strengthening economic ties between two of the world’s largest economies amid President Trump’s upheaval of the global trade system.

The deal, which the British government said would increase bilateral trade by 25.5 billion pounds ($34 billion), comes three years after the negotiations began. Intense talks to finalize the outstanding issues took place last week between Jonathan Reynolds, Britain’s business and trade secretary, and Piyush Goyal, India’s commerce minister.

The British government said India had reduced 90 percent of tariffs on goods, and most of those would become tariff free within a decade. Duties on British whiskey and gin would be halved, to 75 percent, and eventually be lowered to 40 percent. India will also reduce its car tariffs, which exceed 100 percent, to 10 percent under a quota. Britain, in turn, reduced tariffs on clothes, footwear and food products including frozen prawns.

Last year, trade in goods and services between India, the world’s fifth largest economy, and Britain, the world’s sixth, totaled £42.6 billion, according to British data.

The trade agreement comes as many countries are seeking to bolster alliances after Mr. Trump sent shock waves through the global economy by announcing, and then pausing, high tariffs on dozens of countries. The policy whiplash has created uncertainty that is expected to dampen investment and economic growth around the world.

Britain squeezed out 0.1 percent of economic growth in the final quarter of last year, and officials there have tried to increase investment from foreign companies and sign more trade deals. Other negotiations, including those with South Korea, are continuing.

“We are now in a new era for trade and the economy,” Keir Starmer, the British prime minister, said on Tuesday. “That means going further and faster to strengthen the U.K.’s economy,” he said, adding that meant forming closer alliances and reducing trade barriers.

But with immigration a hot-button issue in British politics, the leader of the opposition Conservative Party, Kemi Badenoch, criticized a part of the deal that would make it cheaper for Indian companies to employ people in Britain.

Since 2020, when Britain formally left the European Union, its largest trading partner, the nation has tried to strike trade deals farther afield. A deal with India had proved elusive, despite promises by former British prime ministers including Boris Johnson who, in 2022, said he was aiming to achieve such an agreement by Diwali, in late October, that year. But the negotiations were stuck on several key issues, including India’s request for more visas for its citizens in Britain. The stalled negotiations were restarted by the Labour Party government in February.

India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, took to social media to call the deal “ambitious and mutually beneficial.” It will “catalyze trade, investment, growth, job creation, and innovation in both our economies,” he wrote, adding that he looks forward to hosting Mr. Starmer soon.

Since these negotiations began, India, once regarded as the crown jewel in the British Empire, overtook Britain in terms of economic growth.

The trade deal was not the ambitious “bells and whistles” agreement that the British government was once seeking, said David Henig, a trade expert in London. But “it’s all about taking the moment,” Mr. Henig said, adding that parts of the deal could expand and get deeper when it’s put in place.

The announcement provides some good news for Mr. Starmer after a big setback for his governing Labour Party in regional and mayoral elections last week.

Mark Kent, chief executive of the Scotch Whisky Association, said the reduction in tariffs was “transformational” in giving producers of Scotland-made whiskey access to the world’s largest whiskey market. It has the potential to increase exports by £1 billion over the next five years.

Beyond India, there is a potentially greater economic prize for Britain from new trade agreements with the European Union and the United States.

Progress on an E.U. deal is expected later this month at a summit in Britain. However, the extent to which a deal will ease the trade friction introduced by Brexit is unclear.

The European Union is Britain’s biggest and geographically closest trade partner, and the United States is the most important individual nation for trade flows. So far, Britain has not achieved exemptions from U.S. tariffs — including on its cars — and Mr. Trump’s latest threat to target movies made outside the United States has caused alarm in the British film industry.

For Mr. Modi, the deal with Britain was welcome news during a trying time. His government is trying to formulate a response to a terrorist attack in the disputed region of Kashmir on April 22 that killed 26 civilians. Some kind of military action is anticipated in Pakistan, which India has blamed for the attack.

The trade agreement with Britain is only one of several that India has been struggling to strike. An off-and-on negotiation with the European Union is supposed to conclude later this year, after about 12 years in the making. A deal with the United States is also expected to be completed in 2025.
UK and India sign a ‘landmark’ trade agreement after years of tough negotiations (AP)
AP [5/6/2025 11:54 AM, Jill Lawless and Rajesh Roy, 62527K]
Britain and India announced Tuesday that they have agreed on a hard-wrought free trade agreement that will slash tariffs on products including Scotch whisky and English gin shipped to India and Indian food and spices sent to the U.K.

The deal comes more than three years after negotiations started - and stalled - under a previous British government.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on X that the deal was "ambitious and mutually beneficial." British Prime Minister Keir Starmer called it a "landmark.".

"This is the biggest trade deal that we the U.K. have done since we left the EU, and it´s the most ambitious trade deal that India has ever done," Starmer said.

The U.K. government said the deal will reduce Indian import taxes on British goods including whisky, cosmetics, medical devices, cars, airplane parts and lamb. Whisky and gin tariffs will be halved from 150% to 75% before falling to 40% by year 10 of the deal. Automotive tariffs will fall from over 100% to 10% under a quota.

India’s Trade Ministry said 99% of Indian exports would face no import duty under the deal, which applies to products including textiles, marine products, leather, footwear, toys, gems and jewelry.

"This brings us closer to our goal of becoming a global economic powerhouse. It protects our core interests while opening doors to India´s greater participation in global value chains," Trade Minister Piyush Goyal said.

Modi´s office said the agreement covered trade in both goods and services, and would "unlock new potential for the two nations to jointly develop products and services for global markets.".

Britain said the deal is expected to increase bilateral trade by 25.5 billion pounds ($34 billion) a year from 2040 and add almost 5 billion pounds ($6.7 billion) a year to the British economy.

Mark Kent, chief executive of the Scotch Whisky Association, said the deal would be "transformational" for the industry. India, a country of 1.4 billion people, is the world´s largest whisky market, and Kent said the agreement had "the potential to increase Scotch whisky exports to India by 1 billion pounds over the next five years.".

The issue of visas for Indian nationals was a sticking point in the talks. The British government is under pressure to cut immigrant numbers - pressure heightened by the success of anti-immigrant party Reform UK in local elections in England last week.

Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said the trade deal had "no impact on the immigration system," but made "modest changes to business mobility.".

The agreement adds Indian musicians, chefs and yoga instructors to the groups who can apply for U.K. visas, and includes a three-year exemption from British social security contributions for Indian workers in the U.K. The same exemption will apply to British workers in India.

The deal, which must be ratified by both countries, comes as countries around the world scramble to strike trade deals to make up for tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump on America’s trading partners.

Rain Newton-Smith, chief executive of employers’ organization the Confederation of British Industry, said the trade deal between India and Britain - the world’s fifth- and sixth-largest economies - was a "beacon of hope amidst the specter of protectionism.".

U.K.-India trade negotiations began long before Trump’s re-election. Formal talks began in 2022 on a free trade agreement that then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson hailed as a key goal after Britain´s departure from the European Union in 2020. Johnson famously promised to have a deal done by Diwali in October of that year.

The two countries held 13 rounds of negotiations without a breakthrough before talks were suspended while both nations held general elections in 2024.

Modi was re-elected, and Britain replaced the Conservative government with one led by Starmer´s Labour Party.

The two leaders spoke by phone on Tuesday, and Modi said he had invited Starmer to visit India soon. Starmer’s office said he would go there "at the earliest opportunity.".
Britain and India clinch major trade deal in ‘new era’ of Trump tariffs (Reuters)
Reuters [5/6/2025 1:44 PM, Shivangi Acharya and Alistair Smout, 126906K]
Britain and India clinched a long-coveted free trade pact on Tuesday after tariff turmoil sparked by U.S. President Donald Trump forced the two sides to hasten efforts to increase their trade in whisky, cars and food.

The deal, between the world’s fifth and sixth largest economies, has been concluded after three years of stop-start negotiations and aims to increase bilateral trade by a further 25.5 billion pounds ($34 billion) by 2040.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the trade deal was "ambitious and mutually beneficial". British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the strengthened alliance would reduce trade barriers in a "new era for trade".

Trump’s tariffs have prompted countries across the world to redouble efforts to seek new trade partners and people familiar with the UK-India talks said the turmoil had sharpened the focus to get a deal done.

The deal, which will lower tariffs on goods such as whisky, allow British firms to compete for Indian contracts and Indian workers to more easily work in Britain, is significant for both economies.

It marks India opening up its long-guarded markets, including automobiles, setting an early example for the South Asian nation’s likely approach to dealing with major Western powers such as the U.S. and the European Union.

It also represents Britain’s most significant trade deal since it left the EU in 2020, though the projected boost to British economic output from the deal, of 4.8 billion pounds a year by 2040, is small compared to the country’s gross domestic product of 2.6 trillion pounds in 2024.

India’s trade ministry said 99% of Indian exports would benefit from zero duty under the deal, including textiles, while Britain will see reductions on 90% of its tariff lines.

STOP-START

Talks over a free trade deal between India and Britain were initially launched in January 2022, and became a symbol of Britain’s hopes for its independent trade policy after Brexit.

But negotiations were stop-start, with Britain having four different prime ministers since that launch date and elections in both countries last year.

Britain’s Labour Party, elected last July, moved rapidly to conclude a deal after restarting negotiations in February, with last-minute talks between the countries’ trade ministers in London last week enough to get it over the line.

Britain’s Confederation of British Industry (CBI) said the deal was a "beacon of hope amidst the spectre of protectionism".

Whisky tariffs will be halved from 150% to 75% before reducing to 40% by the deal’s 10th year, while auto tariffs will go from over 100% down to 10% under a quota system.

The Scotch Whisky Association said the deal would be "transformational" for the industry and the UK auto industry body SMMT said it appreciated the considerable effort of negotiators despite the apparent compromises made.

The governments did not publish the text of the deal, which is subject to legal checks, signing and ratification. Modi invited Starmer to India in a call welcoming the conclusion of the substantive talks.

The deal covers rules of origin regulations, giving access to manufacturers to lower tariffs even if they use inputs from other places and includes provisions on procurement allowing British firms to compete for more contracts in India.

BUSINESS MOBILITY

While Starmer is seeking to generate growth, political opponents criticised the deal for provisions it had on business mobility and social security amid public concern over immigration.

The free trade deal provides for easier mobility of certain professionals, while under a separate pact workers no longer have to make social security contributions in both India and Britain during temporary postings in the other country.

Kemi Badenoch, a former trade minister who now leads the opposition Conservative Party, said she had refused to sign a similar deal because of India’s demands on visa requests and social security.

Britain’s trade minister Jonathan Reynolds said the social security pact created a level playing field for India, and emphasised that Britain had rejected requests on more visas for students under the talks.

"There is no impact on the immigration system of the deal that we have agreed," Reynolds told reporters, saying there were only "modest changes" on business mobility.

He said the deal involved gaining certainty for services over the regulations they faced, but efforts to include legal services in the deal came up short.

Meanwhile, financial services will be covered by talks over a bilateral investment treaty. While negotiations on that treaty were conducted in parallel with free trade talks, differences remain and so talks will continue.

Neither government mentioned Britain’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), which could levy higher taxes on polluters from 2027 - a policy that India had sought exemption from as part of the talks.
UK and India agree trade deal after three years of talks (BBC)
BBC [5/6/2025 9:09 AM, Lucy Hooker, 69901K]
The UK and India have agreed a trade deal that will make it easier for UK firms to export whisky, cars and other products to India, and cut taxes on India’s clothing and footwear exports.

The British government said the "landmark" agreement, which took three years to reach, did not include any change in immigration policy, including towards Indian students studying in the UK.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said the deal would boost the economy and "deliver for British people and business".

Last year, trade between the UK and India totalled £42.6bn and was already forecast to grow, but the government said the deal would boost that trade by an additional £25.5bn a year by 2040.

India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, described the agreement as an historic milestone that was "ambitious and mutually beneficial".

The pact would help "catalyse trade, investment, growth, job creation, and innovation in both our economies", he said in a post on social media platform X.

Once it comes into force, which could take up to a year, UK consumers are likely to benefit from the reduction in tariffs on goods coming into the country from India, the Department for Business and Trade said.

That includes lower tariffs on:
clothing and footwear
cars
foodstuffs including frozen prawns
jewellery and gems

The government also emphasised the benefit to economic growth and job creation from UK firms expanding exports to India.

UK exports that will see levies fall include:
gin and whisky
aerospace, electricals and medical devices
cosmetics
lamb, salmon, chocolates and biscuits
higher value cars

The British government said the deal was the "biggest and most economically significant" bilateral trade agreement the UK had signed since leaving the European Union in 2020.

UK Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said the benefits for UK businesses and consumers were "massive".

Tariffs on gin and whisky, a key sticking point in negotiations previously, will be halved to 75%, with further reductions taking effect in later years.

Tariffs of 100% on more expensive UK-made cars exported to India will fall to 10%, subject to a quota limiting the total number.

The deal also includes provisions on the services sector and procurement allowing British firms to compete for more contracts.

Under the terms of the deal, some Indian and British workers will also gain from a three-year exemption from social security payments, which the Indian government called "an unprecedented achievement".

The exemption applies to the staff of Indian companies temporarily transferred to the UK, and to UK firms’ workers transferred to India. Social security contributions will be paid by employers and employees in their home country only, rather than in both places.

The UK already has similar reciprocal "double contribution convention" agreements with 17 other countries including the EU, the US and South Korea, the government said.

However, leader of the opposition Kemi Badenoch described the agreement as "two-tier taxes from two-tier Keir", with Labour’s increase in employer NI contributions from the Budget coming into force last month.

Shadow trade secretary Andrew Griffith said: "Every time Labour negotiates, Britain loses".

Liberal Democrat deputy leader Daisy Cooper said it was "very worrying to hear concerns that Indian workers coming over here, companies may not have to pay taxes on those workers" and called for MPs to be allowed to vote on the deal.

The government said the National Insurance exemption would not affect NHS funding, since Indians working in the UK would still be required to pay the immigration health surcharge.

India, currently the fifth largest economy in the world, is forecast to become the third-largest within in a few years, making it a desirable trading partner for the UK, currently the world’s sixth largest economy.

The UK is also a high priority trading partner for Prime Minister Modi’s government, which has an ambitious target to increase exports by $1 trillion by 2030.

The deal is a win for free trade at a time when US President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariff campaign has put the idea on the defensive and raised fears of tit-for-tat trade wars.

It appears to have increased the impetus to strike this trade deal.

Rain Newton-Smith, chief executive of business lobby group, the CBI, welcomed the deal saying it provided a "beacon of hope amidst the spectre of protectionism" following Trump’s wave of tariffs.

UK businesses saw "myriad" opportunities in the Indian market, she added.

Allie Renison, from communications firm SEC Newgate, and a former government trade adviser, said the deal was potentially "transformational" due to India’s size, growth rate and relatively high existing barriers to accessing its market.
Modi says India will retain share of water it once sent outside the country (Reuters)
Reuters [5/6/2025 1:54 PM, Gibran Naiyyar Peshimam, Shivam Patel and Tanvi Mehta, 62527K]
India Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Tuesday that water that previously was being sent outside the country would now be retained for internal use, days after New Delhi suspended a water-sharing pact with Pakistan.

"Earlier, water belonging to India was also going outside. Now India’s water will flow in its share ... and be utilised for India itself," Modi said while speaking at an event in New Delhi.

He did not elaborate.

Last month, India suspended a 1960 water-sharing pact that ensured supply to 80% of Pakistani farms following an attack in Indian Kashmir that targeted Hindu tourists, killing 26 people. India accused Pakistan of involvement, saying two of the three suspected attackers were Pakistani nationals.

Islamabad has denied the accusation, but says it is fully prepared to defend itself in case of attack, prompting world powers to call for a calming of tension.

The nuclear-armed neighbours have disagreed over use of the water from rivers that flow downstream from India into the Indus River basin in Pakistan.

The Indus Waters Treaty, mediated by the World Bank and signed by India and Pakistan in September 1960, split the Indus and its tributaries between the two countries and regulated water sharing.

New Delhi said last month it would immediately suspend the treaty "until Pakistan credibly and irrevocably abjures its support for cross-border terrorism."

Pakistan’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Islamabad has threatened international legal action over the suspension. "Any attempt to stop or divert the flow of water belonging to Pakistan ... will be considered as an act of war," it said.

Reuters has reported that India has advanced the start date of four under-construction hydropower projects in the Kashmir region by months as well as begun work to boost reservoir holding capacity at two projects.

CIVIL DEFENCE DRILLS

On Tuesday, Pakistan’s military said members of the Baloch Liberation Army, which it described as an "Indian proxy", targeted its vehicle with an improvised explosive device in the restive southwestern province of Balochistan.

The BLA is the strongest of a number of insurgent groups operating in the area bordering Afghanistan and Iran.
India’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the statement.

Other measures taken by the two countries include suspending trade, closing their airspace and reducing embassy staff.

On Monday, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres emphasised the need to avoid a military confrontation that could "easily spin out of control".

Pakistan has held two missile tests in three days and India has unveiled plans for civil defence drills to be conducted in several states on Wednesday, from sounding air raid sirens to evacuation plans.

Pakistan is currently a non-permanent member of the U.N. Security Council. India is not, but New Delhi has been in talks with council members ahead of Monday’s meeting.

An Indian source familiar with the discussion said many members expressed concern that Pakistan’s missile tests and nuclear rhetoric were "escalatory" factors.

On Tuesday, Pakistan’s prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, along with the deputy prime minister, foreign and defence ministers, and the military chiefs, visited the headquarters of its top ISI spy agency.

Muslim-majority Kashmir is claimed in full by both Hindu-majority India and Islamic Pakistan, although each controls only a part of the Himalayan region. They have fought two wars over Kashmir, and New Delhi accuses Pakistan of backing an uprising in Indian Kashmir that started in 1989 but has now waned.

Pakistan says it only offers diplomatic and moral support to a Kashmiri demand for self-determination.
India plans manned space flight by 2027 (Agence France-Presse)
Agence France-Presse [5/6/2025 11:54 AM, Staff, 62527K]
India’s space agency said Tuesday it planned to launch an uncrewed orbital mission later this year before its first human spaceflight in early 2027.

"It represents India’s rise as a global space power", Jitendra Singh, the country’s science and technology minister, said in a statement.

The world’s most populous country has flexed its spacefaring ambitions in the last decade with its space programme growing considerably in size and momentum.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has announced plans to send a man to the Moon by 2040.

"The uncrewed orbital Gaganyaan ("space craft") mission is on track for launch later this year, with recovery trials already conducted with the Indian Navy, and more sea recovery simulations planned," the Department of Space said in a statement.

Along with other tests, this will lead to the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) sending astronauts into space.

"These milestones will culminate in India’s maiden human spaceflight in 2027, launching Indian astronauts into orbit aboard an Indian rocket from Indian soil," it added.

ISRO said the spaceflight was scheduled for "the first quarter" of 2027.

"Training of astronauts is also progressing steadily," the statement added.

"Four Indian Air Force pilots, selected as astronaut-designates, have completed training in Russia and are undergoing further mission-specific training in India.".

In August 2023, it became just the fourth nation to land an unmanned craft on the Moon after Russia, the United States and China.

This month, Indian astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla, 39, is expected to fly to the International Space Station -- becoming the first Indian astronaut to do so and the second in orbit ever.

The mission, which is jointly being undertaken by NASA and the ISRO, will be launched from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida.

Shukla, who is set to pilot the Axiom Mission 4, is likely among the top candidates for ISRO’s spaceflight programme.

Shukla’s travel to space will come four decades after India’s Rakesh Sharma’s iconic spaceflight onboard a Russian spacecraft in 1984.
NSB
Bangladesh’s ailing former premier Khaleda Zia returns home (Reuters)
Reuters [5/6/2025 5:12 AM, Ruma Paul, 126906K]
Ailing former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia returned to Bangladesh on Tuesday after four months of medical treatment in London, drawing large crowds of flag-waving supporters and reigniting the opposition’s call for national elections.

Khaleda, 79, who leads the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), arrived on a special air ambulance arranged by Qatar’s Emir. Greeted by senior BNP leaders, she smiled and waved from her wheelchair as thousands of supporters, some draped in Bangladesh and BNP flags, lined the streets leading to her residence.

Red and green banners fluttered in the air, with chants of “The leader of the nation has returned!” echoing through the crowd.

Khaleda’s return adds fresh momentum to the BNP’s demand for elections by December. The country has been under an interim government led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus since Sheikh Hasina was removed as prime minister and fled to India in August following deadly protests.

Yunus pledged reforms and said the poll could be delayed until 2026.

The two women’s feud, known as the "Battle of the Begums" using the South Asian term of respect for a woman of high rank, has loomed over Bangladeshi politics for decades.

Khaleda has long suffered from liver cirrhosis, heart problems, diabetes, and arthritis.

Her legal troubles under Hasina’s government, including a 17-year prison sentence in corruption cases, were denounced by her party as politically driven. She was released in 2020 on condition that she would not travel abroad.
Ultra-long-haul flight to London makes diversion to Maldives after ‘medical incident’ mid-air (The Independent)
The Independent [5/6/2025 7:49 AM, Natalie Wilson, 44838K]
Passengers on a Qantas flight from Australia to London were forced to divert to the Maldives after a "medical incident" on board.

Flight QF9 from Perth to Heathrow Airport touched down in Malé, the capital city of the Maldives, following the mid-air scare on Monday (5 May).

According to FlightAware data, the Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner departed Perth at 6.37pm local time, landing in the Maldives almost eight hours later at around 11.30pm.

Pilots chose to land the flight in the popular Indian Ocean archipelago following a medical emergency.

The Qantas ultra-long-haul flight between Western Australia and London usually takes around 17 and a half hours non-stop.

As the operating crew had reached their duty limit, the flight could not continue.

The airline confirmed that Qantas rebooked passengers on alternative flights out of Malé, with all customers expected to depart within 24 hours.

London staff members also travelled to Malé to provide additional support.

Details of the passenger’s medical condition have not been released.

A spokesperson for Qantas said in a statement: "Earlier this morning, our Perth to London service diverted to Malé in the Maldives due to a medical incident on board. We’re working with customers to rebook them on alternate flights out of Malé.".

Qantas apologised for the disruption to passengers’ journeys.

It’s not the first time a medical emergency has forced a flight to divert.

In November, a Ryanair flight to Manchester was forced to make an emergency landing in London after a passenger suffered a medical emergency mid-air and later died onboard.

Flight RK8293 from Tirana, Albania, to Manchester touched down at Stansted Airport on 10 November after "chaos" erupted in the cabin.

A fellow passenger told the Manchester Evening News that a man started "having convulsions" before passengers trained in first aid performed CPR in the aisle.

Two members of the cabin crew reportedly used the defibrillator on the man for 25 minutes before the flight made an emergency landing at London Stansted.
Central Asia
Kazakhstan Weighs Options to Fulfill Its OPEC+ Cut Obligations (Bloomberg)
Bloomberg [5/6/2025 9:45 AM, Nariman Gizitdinov, 16228K]
Kazakhstan is considering its options for complying with the country’s OPEC+ obligations to cut production, after Saudi Arabia doubled down on its efforts to bring quota-cheats in line over the weekend.

“Kazakhstan always was and is committed to OPEC+ agreement,” the Astana-based ministry said on Tuesday in emailed reply to questions. Central Asia’s largest oil producer “is considering all possible options for meeting its commitments.”

Oil has declined and banks including Goldman Sachs Group Inc have cut their price forecasts

since OPEC+ decided on May 3 to make another super-sized production increase. Cartel leader Saudi Arabia warned at the meeting that the group’s overproducing members should fall in line, or face further output hikes.

Kazakhstan, the largest over-producer in recent months, may be forced to make additional withdrawals from its oil fund by the fall to cover planned government spending amid lower prices, Halyk Finance said in a research note. The national oil fund’s revenue fell by 43% by the end of April from year earlier, as lower prices offset the increase in crude output, Halyk Finance said.

Russia, a fellow member of OPEC+, is considering changing its budget building mechanism in response to sliding oil revenue.

Kazakhstan agreed at the May 3 meeting of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies to produce 1.5 million barrels a day in June, compared with 1.85 million barrels a day in March. The Energy Ministry did not specify how it would achieve that level of production, and noted that the $48.5 billion expansion of the Chevron-led Tengiz oil field is due to become fully operational this quarter.
Looking at ramifications of China’s shifting energy usage patterns on Central Asia (EurasiaNet)
EurasiaNet [5/6/2025 4:14 PM, Staff, 57.6K]
China’s rapid embrace of renewable energy is bad news for natural gas producers like Russia, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan. But it might have decent ramifications for Uzbekistan’s clean energy agenda.

China controls over 70 percent of global manufacturing capacity in every major category of clean energy production except hydrogen electolyzers, according to a recently published research report produced by BloombergNEF, titled Energy Transition Supply Chains 2025.

The report finds that “mainland China also dominates in attracting new capital for plants to produce clean technology goods such as batteries, solar modules and wind turbines, with 76 percent of such investment in 2024 underwriting plants there.”

Along with enjoying a stranglehold on manufacturing capacity, China has registered explosive growth in clean-power production, especially solar-generated electricity. Renewable energy sources can now meet 80 percent of China’s growing demand for energy and electricity.

“China is on track to have at least 2461 GW of renewable electricity capacity installed by 2030, doubling the 2022 figure, with solar capacity nearly tripling,” according to an analysis produced by Ember, a think-tank dedicated to producing “targeted data and policy insights that accelerate the transition to a clean, electrified energy future.”

Fossil fuels still account for roughly 62 percent of China’s energy usage. But that share is set to fall in the coming years, due to a slowing Chinese economy, the rise of renewables and Communist Party leader Xi Jinping’s plan for the country to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060.

All of these factors help explain recent energy developments in Central Asia involving natural gas. China was long seen as the world’s major driver of rising global gas demand, but now its energy calculus is shifting toward renewables. These changing circumstances likely prompted Chinese leaders to balk at a Russian plan earlier in 2025 to send additional volumes of gas to China via Kazakhstan. It additionally explains why the Power of Siberia 2 pipeline project remains stuck on the drawing board.

China’s slackening thirst for gas also may have played a role in Turkmenistan’s recent decision to start sending gas westward via a swap deal with Turkey. Somehow Ashgabat might have gotten a sense that China will not need such high volumes of Turkmen gas in the future.

The brewing trade war is likely to leave China with a large inventory of solar panels and other goods needed for clean-energy production. That puts Uzbekistan, which is making a big push of its own to embrace renewables, in position to benefit from potentially discounted prices of Chinese goods.

“With many advanced economies prioritizing protectionism through tariffs, developing markets are receiving a growing share of imports from mainland China,” the BloombergNEF analysis stated.
On periphery: Papal visit, doctrinal clashes and Pope Francis’ Central Asian legacy (EurasiaNet)
EurasiaNet [5/6/2025 4:14 PM, Alexander Thompson, 57.6K]
Aisuluu Maria Talipbek saw Pope Francis as an inspiration and a role model.

“Francis was like [a] father,” the 34-year-old said after mass at St. Michael the ArchangelChurch in the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek. “He understood everyone,” she said, even those society has rejected.

Francis was one of the reasons Talipbek became one of the newest members of Kyrgyzstan’s tiny Roman Catholic community last Easter. The Monday following her baptism, Francis, the first Latin American pontiff, who was known for emphasis on mercy and concern for the poor, died at 88 in Rome.

Talipbek was devastated. “I cried a lot,” she said. Members of the Church’s College of Cardinals who are under 80 will begin the process of selecting Francis’ successor on May 7.

Even in Central Asia, where most people are Muslim and most Christians are Orthodox, the Argentine pope has left a lasting legacy. He became the second pope to visit the region, making a 2022 visit to Astana, and constantly emphasized the importance of Catholics on the peripheries of the church, a message that made Central Asian Catholics feel a little less forgotten.

Kazakhstan is home to the largest Catholic population in Central Asia at somewhere around 1% of the population, many of them the descendants of Germans, Ukrainians and Poles resettled or deported there by communist leaders during the Soviet era. There are five Catholic churches in Uzbekistan, four in Kyrgyzstan and tiny communities in Turkmenistan and Tajikistan. None of the cardinals who will elect the next pope are from Central Asia.

When Remigiusz Kalski, the parish priest at St. Michael’s, reflects on Francis’ legacy in Central Asia, the first word that comes to mind is “complicated.”

“On the one hand, Pope Francis had a policy not to abandon anyone in the church without care and especially to look after and help those who are somewhere on the edge, the margins of society,” Kalski said. “On the other hand, decrees by God … and the observance of the commandments do not change.”

Francis’ years on the Throne of Saint Peter saw intense debates over the more progressive direction in which the pope took the church; some loud voices of opposition came from Central Asia.

During Francis’ pontificate, Athanasius Schneider, an Astana auxiliary bishop born in Kyrgyzstan to a family of Black Sea Germans deported by the Soviets, became something of a hero among the pope’s conservative critics with his outspoken opposition to some of Francis’ reforms, and his warnings of the menace posed by “homosexual ideology” and migrants, whom Francis championed.

Schneider issued a 40-point declaration in 2019 with other clerics outlining a traditionalist view of church teaching. During Francis’ 2022 visit he called the pope’s participation in a multi-faith summit “dangerous.” And, along with Astana Archbishop Tomash Peta, strongly condemned Francis’ 2016 decision that allowed divorced and remarried Catholics to receive communion under some circumstances.

In December 2023, the Vatican allowed priests to informally bless same-sex couples, without changing the church’s opposition to gay marriage. Peta and Schneider were among the first church leaders to ban priests in their archdiocese from performing such blessings, doing so the day after the Vatican guidance was published.

The clashes between the Astana bishops and Francis are emblematic of a wider rift within the church that will likely play out at the coming conclave between those who favor small adaptations in church practice to make it more dynamic and inclusive, and those who see the church’s resistance to modernity and strict adherence to doctrine as its strength.

Though the vast majority of clerics in Central Asia did not take the Astana bishops’ confrontational approach, questions about doctrine did come up.

St. Michael’s Kalski recalled that after the announcement about blessing same-sex couples, which Russian media portrayed as a full-throated endorsement of same-sex marriage, Kyrgyz protestant communities stopped inviting Catholics to inter-faith events, and government officials grumbled that the church was contradicting Kyrgyz traditional values.

For many Central Asian Catholics, it is Francis’ September 2022 visit to Astana that left the greatest impression of his pontificate. Kyrgyz Catholics, for instance, piled into a tour bus and made the 21-hour drive across the Kazakh steppe to attend, Kalski said.

Rinat Osmonaliev, a 34-year-old Kyrgyz Catholic from Bishkek, took turns at the wheel with a friend as they made the long journey. Authorities estimated 10,000 people turned out for the pope’s mass on the Expo grounds in Astana. Osmonaliev looked on from deep in the crowd.

“There was a feeling of such unity,” he said. “People came from Kazakhstan, from Russia, from Kyrgyzstan, from Uzbekistan, and because Catholics are so few in Central Asia, we all met everyone we know.”

In addition to the mass, the pope participated in the Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions, met with Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, met with the church’s leadership in the region and begged for an end to the “senseless” war in Ukraine.

The visit echoed Pope John Paul II’s 2001 visit to Astana when he called for inter-religious understanding.

Francis often directed his travel away from the traditional centers of Catholicism in Europe toward far-flung countries with small Catholic minorities like Romania, Iraq and Myanmar, mirroring his emphasis on those on the margins of society.

“We feel that we’re on the far periphery of the world, but all the same we felt like the pope remembers the little sprouts [of the church] that are on the other side of the world,” Osmonaliev said.

He hopes the next pope “will, just like Pope Francis, help the little communities all over the world, because Christianity will develop where Christians are few.”
Indo-Pacific
India Strikes Pakistan, Which Vows to Respond (New York Times)
New York Times [5/7/2025 4:32 AM, Salman Masood, Mujib Mashal, and Hari Kumar, 831K]
India said early Wednesday that it had conducted strikes on Pakistan, two weeks after 26 civilians were killed in a terrorist attack in Indian-administered Kashmir.

The Indian government said its forces had struck nine sites in Pakistan and on Pakistan’s side of the disputed Kashmir region. Pakistani military officials said that more than 20 people had been killed and dozens injured after six places were hit on the Pakistani side of Kashmir and in Punjab Province. Residents of the Indian side of Kashmir said at least 10 people had been killed in shelling from the Pakistani side since India carried out its strikes.

At least two aircraft were reported to have gone down in India and the Indian-controlled side of Kashmir. But Pakistan’s claims to have shot down Indian aircraft, including some of the country’s newest fighter jets, were still unconfirmed.

While India in recent years has struck Pakistan-administered Kashmir and areas close to it during periods of rising tensions, the attack on Wednesday on Punjab, in Pakistani territory outside the contested region, represented an escalation in the conflict between the two nuclear-armed countries.

After the attacks, India was bracing for a response from Pakistan, its neighbor and nemesis for more than seven decades. The two nations have fought several wars, the most recent in 1999, and have edged to the brink more than once since then. As tensions have sharpened again, global leaders have warned of potentially dire consequences if the two sides fail to de-escalate.

India said on Wednesday that it had struck Pakistan after gathering evidence “pointing towards the clear involvement of Pakistan-based terrorists” in last month’s attack on civilians in a tourist area in Kashmir. It said that its military actions had been “measured, responsible and designed to be nonescalatory in nature.” It added that it had targeted only “known terror camps.”

In its own statement on Wednesday, the Pakistani government called the Indian strikes “an unprovoked and blatant act of war” that had “violated Pakistan’s sovereignty.”

Pakistan said it would respond at “a time and place of its own choosing.” Pakistani military officials said they had begun a “measured but forceful” response.

News channels and witnesses said at least one aircraft had gone down on the Indian side of Kashmir. A second aircraft was reported to have been downed in the Indian state of Punjab, according to Indian news reports and a witness account.

Analyzing witness photos from one wreckage site, in the village of Wuyan in India-administered Kashmir, a weapons researcher identified the debris as an external fuel tank for a plane. The analyst, Trevor Ball, of Armament Research Services, said the tank was likely from a Rafale or Mirage fighter jet, both of which are made by the French manufacturer Dassault Aviation and used by India. Mr. Ball could not confirm whether the tank had come from an aircraft that had been hit by enemy fire.

Pakistani military officials claimed, without providing proof, that their forces had downed several Indian aircraft, including Rafale jets, which are among the newest and most advanced in India’s air force.

Residents and local elders in the areas of Uri and Poonch, on the Indian-controlled side of Kashmir, reported that Pakistani shelling since the cross-border strikes had killed at least ten people, wounded at least 50 and damaged several houses.

Manoj Sinha, the lieutenant governor of India’s Kashmir region, said he had ordered that villagers be moved to safer locations.

At the White House, President Trump called the escalation between India and Pakistan “a shame.”

“We just heard about it,” he said of the Indian strikes. “They’ve been fighting for a long time. I just hope it ends very quickly.” Shortly after the strikes, the Indian national security adviser, Ajit Doval, briefed Secretary of State Marco Rubio on the military actions, according to Indian officials.

A spokesman for the U.N. secretary general, António Guterres, called for restraint from the two sides, adding, “The world cannot afford a military confrontation between India and Pakistan.”

But the scale and nature of the attacks by India are likely to provoke a “significant retaliation” by Pakistan, said Asfandyar Mir, a senior fellow in the South Asia program at the Stimson Center in Washington.

After attacks against Indian security forces in Indian-administered Kashmir in 2016 and 2019, India conducted more limited strikes in Pakistani-controlled territory. But this time, India “has crossed two significant thresholds in its military action” by hitting a large number of sites in Pakistan and striking the Pakistani heartland in Punjab, Mr. Mir said.

As India prepared for potential retaliation by Pakistan, military officials said that all of the country’s air-defense units along the border had been activated, India’s public broadcaster reported. Airlines said that several airports, including the one in Srinagar, the capital of the Indian side of Kashmir, had been closed to civilian travel.

The precise nature of Wednesday’s strikes — whether they involved missiles fired from India or Indian fighter jets crossing into Pakistan — was unclear. The Pakistani military said that Indian planes did not enter Pakistan’s airspace in conducting the attacks.

Residents of Muzaffarabad, the capital of the Pakistani part of Kashmir, reported hearing jets flying above. They said that a site in a rural area near Muzaffarabad that was once used by Lashkar-e-Taiba, a militant group based in Pakistan, appeared to have been targeted in the strikes.

A spokesman for the Pakistani Army said that five other places had also come under attack.

They included Bahawalpur, in Punjab Province, Pakistan, the site of a religious seminary associated with Jaish-e-Mohammad, another Pakistan-based militant group; Kotli and Bagh in Pakistan-administered Kashmir; and Shakargarh and Muridke in Punjab. Lashkar-e-Taiba is believed to have a presence in Muridke

Indian forces are calling their military operation Sindoor, a reference to the red vermilion that Hindu women wear in their hair after marriage. It refers to the gruesome nature of the terrorist attack two weeks ago, in which many wives saw their husbands killed in front of them.

“Victory to Mother India,” Rajnath Singh, India’s defense minister, wrote on X.

In the April 22 attack, militants opened fire on tourists in the Indian-administered region of Kashmir, killing 26 and injuring more than a dozen others.

The massacre was one of the worst attacks on Indian civilians in decades, and India was quick to suggest that Pakistan, its neighbor and archenemy, had been involved. The two countries have fought several wars over Kashmir, a region that they have split but that each claims in whole.

The Pakistani government has denied involvement in the attack, and India has presented little evidence to support its accusations. Still, soon after the onslaught, India announced a flurry of punitive measures against Pakistan, including threatening to disrupt the flow of a major river system that supplies it with water.

In Kashmir, Indian forces began a sweeping crackdown, arresting hundreds, as they continued their hunt for the attackers. And India and Pakistan have repeatedly exchanged small-arms fire along the border in the days after the attack.

The strikes by India on Wednesday are an intensification of the conflict. The Pakistani government earlier vowed to respond in kind to any Indian aggression, and both nations have the capacity to inflict tremendous damage.

Since a war between the two nations over the region in 1999 and a rise in separatist insurgency, Kashmir has remained one of the world’s most militarized areas. The countries have repeatedly come to the brink of war since then, including in 2019, when a bombing in Kashmir killed at least 40 Indian soldiers.

That bombing, which was claimed by the militant Islamist group Jaish-e-Mohammed, prompted an Indian airstrike inside Pakistan, and an Indian jet was shot down. Tensions between the countries eased when Pakistan released the pilot.
India strikes Pakistan after Kashmir attack, raising fears of war (Washington Post)
Washington Post [5/6/2025 9:33 PM, Shaiq Hussain, Shams Irfan, Karishma Mehrotra, John Hudson and Maham Javaid, 31735K]
The Indian military said early Wednesday it had launched strikes against Pakistan in retaliation for last month’s militant attack in Indian-administered Kashmir, putting the nuclear-armed neighbors in direct conflict for the first time in six years.

India’s armed forces said nine sites “from where terrorist attacks against India have been planned and directed” were targeted. The statement said no Pakistani military facilities were hit and characterized the attack as “focused, measured, and non-escalatory in nature.”

But the strikes were swiftly condemned by Pakistan. Officials said eight people were killed, including a child and two teenagers, and 35 injured. “India has shamelessly attacked the civilian population, and the attack will be answered accordingly,” Pakistani Defense Minister Khawaja Asif said on national television.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said in a statement that “Pakistan has every right to give a befitting reply to this act of war imposed by India and a befitting reply is being given.”

Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, Pakistan’s chief military spokesman, told CNN that two Indian aircraft had been shot down by Pakistan. Soon after, Asif told Geo News that five Indian warplanes had been downed, including French-made Rafales. The claims could not be independently verified, and the Indian government had no immediate response.

Pakistan’s military reported 24 “impacts” across six locations: Ahmedpur East, Muridke and Sialkot in Pakistan, and Kotli, Bagh and Muzaffarabad in Pakistani-administered Kashmir.

Faryal Waheed, 45, was getting ready for bed about 12:30 a.m. in the eastern Pakistani city of Bahawalpur when she heard four loud blasts in quick succession, she said. Her gatekeeper told her he had seen “huge flashes of light in the sky.”

Waheed’s husband, a general surgeon at Bahawalpur’s biggest government hospital, was called in to work about 1 a.m., she said.

“The entire staff has been called in, doctors, nurses and ward boys,” she said. “I’m scared for us.”

Another Bahawalpur resident, 58-year-old Atif Saeed, ran outside when he heard the blasts, hoping to check on his nearby fertilizer warehouse. Police and soldiers were already in the streets, he said, and they urged him to return home.

“We will find out the truth about how many died as the morning comes,” Saeed said.

India’s military response against Pakistan is the most significant since the 1971 war fought between the two countries, said Sushant Singh, a lecturer at Yale University and a former Indian military officer.

“This is not just limited to Kashmir, which is a contested territory,” he said. “… This is mainland Pakistan. This is Pakistani heartland.”

Singh said this level of attack significantly ratchets up tensions between the two countries — and could be tantamount to a declaration of war. India claims to have not hit any Pakistani military targets and framed attacks as “non-escalatory,” Singh said, but Pakistan’s response will guide the next phase of this altercation.

“If they go and hit inside Indian Punjab, or India’s Rajasthan province,” Singh said, referencing two Indian states that border Pakistan, “then it would be absolutely insane. Then we are looking at a different scale.”

Tensions between India and Pakistan have spiked in the aftermath of the April 22 attack by militants in a popular tourist area in Indian-administered Kashmir. Twenty-six people were killed, making it the deadliest assault on Indian civilians since the 2008 attacks in Mumbai. India’s government said the attack had “linkages” to Pakistan, which Islamabad has denied.

In 2019, after another militant attack in Kashmir, India carried out strikes in Pakistan, followed by a brief aerial battle along the Line of Control, which separates Indian- and Pakistani-administered Kashmir. Both countries claim ownership of the Muslim-majority territory, and the dispute has led to wars between them. A fragile ceasefire was reached in 2021 and had held — until now.

“It’s a shame,” President Donald Trump said in the Oval Office, adding that he “hopes it ends very, very quickly.”

The Indian Embassy in Washington said India’s national security adviser, Ajit Doval, spoke with Secretary of State Marco Rubio after the attack and briefed him on the details. “No Pakistani civilian, economic or military targets have been hit,” the embassy said in a statement. “Only known terror camps were targeted.”

Indian officials said they also had briefed counterparts in the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Russia.

Over the past week, the Trump administration had urged the two countries to de-escalate the situation, but New Delhi made clear it would retaliate. In an April 30 phone call, India’s minister of external affairs, S. Jaishankar, told Rubio that Pakistan “must pay a price” and that India would strike its neighbor soon, said two diplomats familiar with the matter, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive details.

Jaishankar said it would be up to Pakistan to decide whether to respond to the Indian counterattack or let that be the end of it, the diplomats said. State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said Rubio encouraged Jaishankar to work with his Pakistani counterpart to “de-escalate tensions and maintain peace and security.”

That same day, the diplomats said, Pakistani officials told Washington that they did not direct the attacks in Kashmir and urged the United States to lead an international investigation into the incident. The State Department did not say if it would support such an investigation, but experts said it was unlikely, especially after the Indian strikes.

China, a key backer of Pakistan, had reiterated its support for the government in Islamabad in recent days. On Monday, Pakistani authorities said China’s ambassador to Pakistan, Jiang Zaidong, met with Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and called the relationship “ironclad.”

At the United Nations, the spokesperson for Secretary General António Guterres said he was “very concerned” about the Indian strikes in Pakistan and was calling for “maximum military restraint from both countries.”

“The world cannot afford a military confrontation between India and Pakistan,” said Stephane Dujarric, Guterres’s spokesperson.

“Because both India and Pakistan have nuclear weapons, any military confrontation is dangerous, no matter how limited the use of force,” said Michael Kugelman, a South Asia analyst based in Washington.

“Neither country has any interest in a hot war … but one shouldn’t be complacent about the risks, especially given the possibility of miscalculations.”

Following the Indian strikes, Pakistani forces fired artillery across the Line of Control, India’s military said, adding that it was “responding appropriately in a calibrated manner.”
Pakistan claims to have downed Indian warplanes, vows response to strikes (Washington Post)
Washington Post [5/7/2025 3:33 AM, Shaiq Hussain, Rick Noack, Karishma Mehrotra and Shams Irfan, 6.9M]
India and Pakistan are facing direct conflict for the first time since tensions spiked in 2019, after India on Wednesday launched strikes on Pakistan and Islamabad claimed to have downed several Indian warplanes.

India’s armed forces said nine sites “from where terrorist attacks against India have been planned and directed” were hit in retaliation for last month’s militant attack in Indian-administered Kashmir, which New Delhi has linked to Islamabad.

Analysts have warned in the wake of the attacks that the risk of escalation between the nuclear-armed neighbors is increasing. Wednesday’s aerial assault was on a far bigger scale than in 2019, when India struck a single, remote Pakistani site in response to a similar militant attack in Kashmir.

Pakistani officials said the strikes early Wednesday killed at least 21 civilians, including two children. Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said in a statement Wednesday that the country “has every right to give a befitting reply to this act of war imposed by India and a befitting reply is being given.”

India claims not to have hit any Pakistani military targets and framed the attacks as “non-escalatory.”

Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, Pakistan’s chief military spokesman, told Pakistani outlet Geo News on Wednesday that Pakistan had shot down five Indian warplanes, including French-made Rafales. Pakistani officials released a video showing smoke rising from apparent wreckage that officials claimed was one of the downed planes. The claims could not be independently verified, and the Indian government had no immediate response.

India’s military also said in a statement that three civilians were killed in “indiscriminate firing” and “artillery shelling” from across the Pakistani-administered side of the Line of Control overnight into Wednesday, adding that Indian forces are “responding in proportionate manner.” Pakistani officials said five civilians had been killed along the disputed border by Indian artillery fire.

Tensions between India and Pakistan had spiked in the aftermath of the April 22 attack by militants in Pahalgam, a popular tourist area in Indian-administered Kashmir. Twenty-six people were killed — 25 Indians and one Nepalese citizen — making it the deadliest assault on Indian civilians since the 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai by a Pakistan-based militant organization that left 166 people dead.

In a highly choreographed press briefing on Wednesday, Indian Foreign Minister Vikram Misri claimed that India had found evidence linking the militants to Pakistan.

He added that the Resistance Front, which India says is an offshoot of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-E-Taiba militant group, was behind the attacks, based in part on social media posts made by the group and affiliated accounts. The group has denied involvement.

Misri said Indian intelligence indicated that further attacks against India were forthcoming and that New Delhi’s response was meant as a measure of deterrence. He provided no response about Pakistan’s claims of downing several Indian fighter jets.

“The escalation risks are already much higher than they were at any point during the 2019 crisis,” said Michael Kugelman, a South Asia analyst.

In 2019, after a militant attack in Kashmir, India struck a site in Pakistan, which was followed by a brief aerial battle along the Line of Control that separates Indian- and Pakistani-administered Kashmir. Both countries claim ownership of the Muslim-majority territory, and the dispute has led to wars between them. A fragile ceasefire was reached in 2021 and had largely held until now.

This time, “it’ll be more difficult than it was in 2019 to look for off-ramps,” said Kugelman.

Pakistan’s military on Wednesday reported 24 “impacts” across six locations: Ahmedpur East, Muridke and Sialkot in Pakistan, and Kotli, Bagh and Muzaffarabad in Pakistani-administered Kashmir.

Asfandyar Mir, a South Asia analyst, said the risk that the current fighting could spiral out of control has been further heightened by India’s choice of targets, which included at least three locations in Punjab and, according to Pakistani officials, targeted several mosques.

“It’s the heartland of the country: the cultural, sociopolitical heartland, it’s where the military is from and where much of the state apparatus draws from,” Mir said.

“The last time the Indians struck in Punjab was in the 1971 war,” he said — years before either nation became a nuclear power. (That war occurred when India’s military became involved in a civil war in East Pakistan. The conflict eventually resulted in East Pakistan becoming the independent nation of Bangladesh.)

“The Pakistani leadership will feel like they have legitimate grounds to respond to India in a fairly big manner,” Mir said. The thinking among Pakistani generals may now be that “to prevent India from ever attempting something like this again, they have to impose a lot of cost on India, that India really needs to pay for this,” said Mir, adding that Pakistan’s options may range from limited airstrikes to a ground incursion.

Sushant Singh, a lecturer at Yale University and a former Indian military officer, said Pakistan’s response will guide the next phase of this altercation.

“If they go and hit inside Indian Punjab, or India’s Rajasthan province,” Singh said, referencing two Indian states that border Pakistan, “then it would be absolutely insane. Then we are looking at a different scale.”

“It’s a shame,” President Donald Trump said in the Oval Office, adding that he “hopes it ends very, very quickly.”

China, a key backer of Pakistan, called India’s attack against Pakistan “regrettable.” In a statement, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson urged “both sides to act in the larger interest of peace and stability, remain calm, exercise restraint and refrain from taking actions that may further complicate the situation.”
India Launches Military Strikes Against Pakistan (Wall Street Journal)
Wall Street Journal [5/6/2025 9:30 PM, Shan Li and Waqar Gillani, 126906K]
India said it conducted military strikes on nine sites in Pakistan in retaliation for a deadly militant attack on tourists in Kashmir, intensifying a confrontation between the nuclear-armed neighbors.

Pakistan’s army spokesman, Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, said at least eight people were killed and 35 injured.

Pakistan’s defense minister told a local news channel that Pakistan shot down five Indian aircraft. The Indian foreign ministry didn’t respond to a request for comment.

The Indian defense ministry said its forces carried out strikes on camps terrorists have used to stage attacks against India, according to a statement released on Wednesday.

"We are living up to the commitment that those responsible for this attack will be held accountable," India’s defense ministry said.

"Justice is served," India’s army said on social-media platform X.

India’s action came despite diplomatic efforts, including phone calls by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio to Pakistan’s prime minister and India’s foreign minister last week, aimed at persuading both sides to lessen tensions that have reached their highest point in years.

"I echo @POTUS’s comments earlier today that this hopefully ends quickly and will continue to engage both Indian and Pakistani leadership towards a peaceful resolution," Rubio said Tuesday evening on X.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said that India attacked five places. "We will not let the enemy succeed in its condemnable objectives," Sharif said in a statement Wednesday.

The rivals have inched closer to conflict since gunmen burst into a scenic meadow April 22 in Indian-administered Kashmir and killed 26 people, mostly Indian tourists.

Indian and Pakistani forces subsequently exchanged small-arms fire across the Kashmir border for several consecutive days, jeopardizing a fragile 2021 cease-fire agreement between the neighbors.

India accused Pakistan of having links to the attack. Kashmir police identified three gunmen and released sketches of them along with a bounty of about $24,000 each. They identified one as a local militant and two as Pakistani militants. India hasn’t provided any evidence publicly.

Pakistan has denied involvement in last month’s attack and has accused India of sponsoring a terror network inside Pakistan. India has dismissed that allegation.

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi has promised to hunt the attackers "to the ends of the earth," a message he has repeated in recent days. Pakistan warned last week that Indian action was imminent.

"Pakistan will not be the first to resort to any escalatory move," Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar said. "However, in case of any escalatory move by the Indian side, we will respond very strongly.".

The specter of fresh conflict between the countries, which have fought three wars largely over the disputed Muslim-majority region of Kashmir, follows years of frosty peace. Pakistan has been focused on economic crisis and political instability, while India turned to cultivating deeper ties with Western countries including the U.S.

Overt confrontation now would invite a Pakistani response, said Ashley Tellis, an expert on Asian geopolitics at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "You open Pandora’s box," Tellis said.

Pakistan will likely feel compelled to respond by launching its own strikes on India, said Husain Haqqani, senior fellow at Hudson Institute and a former Pakistan ambassador to the U.S. Depending on what Pakistan targets and any damage and casualties, India could then decide to escalate or allow tensions to cool down, he said.

"Do we get into a cycle of retaliation for retaliation?" Haqqani said. If that happens, "then we are in for huge trouble.".

Both India and Pakistan claim all of Kashmir, although each controls only portions of the territory. They last clashed over the region in 2019 after a suicide bomber killed 40 Indian paramilitary police officers in Kashmir. The attacker claimed in a video released afterward to be a member of Jaish-e-Mohammed, a Pakistani militant group.

India retaliated with airstrikes against Pakistan. Pakistani forces shot down a warplane and captured an Indian pilot. Tensions eased after the countries negotiated his release.

Months later, India revoked the longstanding special status that gave Indian Kashmir, which had been India’s only Muslim-majority state, more autonomy than other parts of the country and detained thousands of people in a clampdown. India said the special status contributed to militancy there.

Since the April attack, security forces in Kashmir have demolished the homes of alleged militants and their families and detained hundreds for questioning.

India has also implemented a slew of economic and diplomatic measures against Pakistan, including suspension of a crucial water-sharing agreement.

Brokered by the World Bank in 1960, the treaty to manage shared rivers has withstood two wars and a major land skirmish between the countries. Though it would take India years to build dams to choke off water to Pakistan, its move signaled that even minimal cooperation has broken down, said Haqqani.

"Short of war, this is the worst stage for two countries," he said.

Pakistan has closed its airspace to Indian airlines, a move India matched. Pakistani forces detained an Indian border guard who accidentally strayed across the border. India has ordered Pakistan nationals in India to leave, and reduced staff allowed at Pakistan’s diplomatic mission.

India’s military is stretched because many soldiers are deployed at the disputed border with China following a 2020 clash, analysts said. China is a close ally of Pakistan and its top weapons provider.

"That Pakistan-China nexus must be on the minds of Indian decision makers as well," said Asfandyar Mir, senior fellow at the Stimson Center.
India, Pakistan Trade Military Strikes After Kashmir Attack (Bloomberg)
Bloomberg [5/6/2025 11:58 PM, Khalid Qayum, Faseeh Mangi, and Anup Roy, 126906K]
India conducted targeted military strikes against Pakistan, which said it retaliated in expected tit-for-tat blows after a militant attack last month in Kashmir that killed 26 people.

India said in a statement early Wednesday that it conducted “a precise and restrained response” that was “designed to be non-escalatory in nature.” The strikes hit seven locations, according to officials from both countries, and were the deepest breach of Pakistani territory since the 1971 war.

New Delhi said it only targeted “known terror camps” and hit no Pakistani civilian, economic or military targets. A spokesman for Pakistan’s military told a briefing that eight Pakistanis were killed and several others wounded. Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs called the strikes an “act of war.”

Pakistani Defense Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif said on Bloomberg Television his country’s military shot down five Indian jets. India’s Ministry of External Affairs didn’t immediately respond to requests for information. Earlier, India’s military said that Pakistan forces fired artillery into India-controlled portions of Kashmir.

“These are not hostile acts — we are just defending our territory,” Pakistan’s Asif told Bloomberg Television. “We have been saying all along the last fortnight that we will never initiate anything hostile toward India,” he added. “But if India attacks, we’ll respond. If India backs down, we’ll definitely wrap up.”

India struck Pakistan beyond the disputed Kashmir territory, hitting seven locations — Bahawalpur, Muridke, Tehra Kalan, Sialkot, Bhimber, Kotli, Muzaffarabad — according to government officials from both countries.

The question now is whether the conflict will escalate further. The last time the two sides came close to an all-out war was in 2019, after a suicide bomber killed 40 members of India’s security forces. India blamed Pakistan and responded about two weeks later with its first airstrikes on Pakistani soil since 1971. Pakistan retaliated by shooting down an Indian jet and arresting the pilot, who was later released. Tensions died down soon afterward.

The action so far mirrors previous incidents, indicating a reluctance by the two sides to escalate the conflict, Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan, resident senior fellow at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

“Things can go out of control, spin out of control,” she said. “That’s something that the political leadership on both sides are mindful of. But if you look at their repeated conflicts over the last three decades since both countries went nuclear in 1998, both sides have shown restraint.”

India’s benchmark NSE Nifty 50 Index fell 0.7% in opening minutes of trading on Wednesday, before erasing the decline to trade little changed. The Indian rupee traded lower while bonds erased early losses.

Financial markets will likely be jittery in the immediate aftermath of the military action, said Sonal Varma, an economist at Nomura Holdings. “That said, past episodes show that the market and economic impact of similar geopolitical events tends to be short-lived,” she added.

The Indian National Congress, the country’s main opposition party, backed the military action, but refrained from calling for more strikes.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Wednesday called India’s actions a “cowardly attack,” while the nation’s Foreign Ministry released a separate statement saying that women and children died in the attack.

“Pakistan has a full right now to respond in a befitting manner to the conflict imposed on us,” Sharif said in a statement. “The enemy won’t be allowed to achieve its goals.”

India said that National Security Advisor Ajit Doval briefed US Secretary of State Marco Rubio after the strikes. Rubio had sought to de-escalate tensions, speaking with both sides in recent days. India is currently engaged in trade talks with the US.

US President Donald Trump, speaking in the Oval Office on Tuesday, called the situation “a shame.”

“They’ve been fighting for a long time,” Trump said. “I just hope it ends very quickly.”

Pakistan airspace was closed after the Indian strike, Pakistan International Airlines Corp. spokesman Abdullah Hafeez said in a text message.

Ties between the nuclear-armed South Asian rivals have rapidly deteriorated in the wake of the Kashmir attack, which India has called an act of terrorism. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government had accused Pakistan of involvement and vowed to punish those responsible. Pakistan has denied any links to the attacks.

India called its military strike “Operation Sindoor,” a reference to the sacred vermillion powder married Hindu women wear along their hairline. Survivors in the April 22 attack said that men were shot while their wives and children watched.

Tensions had also escalated following the Kashmir attack after India suspended a long-standing Indus Waters Treaty, with Pakistan saying earlier in the day that India has almost entirely stopped the flow of water across the border through the Chenab river, which is crucial for farm irrigation.

India and Pakistan are two of the world’s most acrimonious neighbors, and the long-running tensions between them center on the border region of Kashmir, an area in the Himalayas claimed in full — and ruled in part — by both. New Delhi, for decades, has been frustrated by what it sees as the Pakistan military’s support for terror groups that strike inside its territory.

Skirmishes in the border areas have continued in the past few days and both nations took steps to show their operational readiness. Pakistan conducted surface-to-surface missile tests this week, highlighting its military might and India ordered mock drills across several states to ensure preparedness amid the standoff.

Since achieving independence from Britain in 1947, India and Pakistan have fought several times over the disputed Himalayan region. The most recent prolonged fighting occurred in 1999, when Pakistani troops infiltrated Kargil, an Indian-controlled district in Kashmir. That lasted for several months until Pakistani forces withdrew from locations on the Line of Control, the de facto border.
India fires missiles into Pakistani territory in what Islamabad calls ‘act of war’ (AP)
AP [5/6/2025 7:41 PM, Munir Ahmed, Sheikh Saaliq, Rajesh Roy, Riazat Butt, and Aijaz Hussain, 864K]
India fired missiles into Pakistani-controlled territory in several locations early Wednesday, killing at least 19 people including a child, in what Pakistan’s leader called an act of war.

India said it struck infrastructure used by militants linked to last month’s massacre of tourists in the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir.

At least three civilians were also killed in Indian-controlled Kashmir by Pakistani shelling, the Indian army said in a statement.

Tensions have soared between the nuclear-armed neighbors since the attack, which India has blamed Pakistan for backing. Islamabad has denied the accusation.

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif condemned Wednesday’s airstrikes and said the “deceitful enemy has carried out cowardly attacks” and that his country would retaliate.

“Pakistan has every right to give a robust response to this act of war imposed by India, and a strong response is indeed being given,” Sharif said.

Sharif has convened a meeting of the National Security Committee for Wednesday morning.

Exchanges raise threat of war

South Asia analyst Michael Kugelman said it was one the highest-intensity strikes from India on its rival in years and that Pakistan’s response would “surely pack a punch as well.”

“These are two strong militaries that, even with nuclear weapons as a deterrent, are not afraid to deploy sizeable levels of conventional military force against each other,” Kugelman said. “The escalation risks are real. And they could well increase, and quickly.”

Stephane Dujarric, the United Nations spokesperson, said in a statement late Tuesday that Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for maximum military restraint from both countries.

“The world cannot afford a military confrontation between India and Pakistan,” the statement read.

Indian politicians from different political parties lauded the strikes. “Victory to Mother India,” India’s defense minister, Rajnath Singh, wrote on X.

India’s main opposition Congress party called for national unity and said it was “extremely proud” of the country’s army. “We applaud their resolute resolve and courage,” Congress party president Mallikarjun Kharge said.

India’s army said the operation was named “Sindoor,” a Hindi word for the bright red vermillion powder worn by married Hindu women on their forehead and hair, in a reference to the women who saw their husbands killed in front of them.
Scenes of panic and destruction

The missiles hit six locations in Pakistan-administered Kashmir and in the country’s eastern Punjab province, said Pakistan’s military spokesperson, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Sharif.

At least 19 people were killed and 38 injured, according to officials.

India’s Defense Ministry said the strikes targeted at least nine sites “where terrorist attacks against India have been planned.”

“Our actions have been focused, measured and non-escalatory in nature. No Pakistan military facilities have been targeted,” the statement said, adding that “India has demonstrated considerable restraint.”

Pakistani officials said the strikes hit at least two sites previously tied to banned militant groups.

One hit the Subhan Mosque in the city of Bahawalpur in Punjab, killing 13 people including a child, according to Zohaib Ahmed, a doctor at a nearby hospital.

The mosque is adjacent to a seminary that once served as the central office of Jaish-e-Mohammed, a militant group outlawed in 2002. Officials say the group has had no operational presence at the site since the ban.

Muhammad Sabir, who lives nearby, said he heard three or four explosions and then ran to a nearby field with his family and laid down.

Another missile hit a mosque in Muridke, damaging its structure. A sprawling building located nearby served as the headquarters of Lashkar-e-Taiba until 2013, when Pakistan banned the group and arrested its founder.

The attack in Kashmir was claimed by a previously unknown group calling itself Kashmir Resistance.

In Muzaffarabad, the main city of Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, resident Abdul Sammad said he heard several explosions as the blast ripped through houses and saw people running in panic. Authorities immediately cut power to the area.

Later, locals inspected the damage to their homes in the aftermath of the missile attacks, rubble and other debris crunching underfoot.

People took refuge on the streets and in open areas, fearful of what might happen. “We were afraid the next missile might hit our house,” said Mohammad Ashraf.

Authorities in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir have declared an emergency in the region’s hospitals.

Pakistan shut schools in Kashmir and Punjab province after the missile strikes. It had earlier closed seminaries in Kashmir in anticipation of an attack by India.
India hit by shelling as planes fall on villages

Along the Line of Control, which divides the disputed region of Kashmir between India and Pakistan, there were heavy exchanges of fire.

The Indian army said three civilians were killed when Pakistani troops “resorted to arbitrary firing,” including gunfire and artillery shelling, across the Line of Control, the de facto border that divides disputed Kashmir between the two countries, and their international border. It said it was “responding in a proportionate manner.”

Shortly after India’s strikes, aircraft fell in two villages in India-controlled Kashmir.

State-run Pakistan Television, quoting security officials, said the country’s air force shot down five Indian jets in retaliation but provided no additional detail. There was no immediate comment from India about Pakistan’s claim. Pakistan’s Foreign Affairs Ministry has said Indian forces had launched the strikes from inside Indian airspace.

The debris of plane parts were scattered across a village in the outskirts of the region’s main city , including in a school and a mosque compound, according to Srinagar police and residents.

“There was a huge fire in the sky. Then we heard several blasts also,” said Mohammed Yousuf Dar, a resident of southern Wuyan village in the Pampore area, where the incident occurred.

Firefighters struggled for hours to douse the fires.

Another aircraft fell in an open field in the village of Bhardha Kalan near southern Akhnoor town, close to the Line of Control in Indian-controlled Kashmir shortly after the strikes.

Village resident Sachin Kumar told The Associated Press that he heard massive blasts followed by a huge ball of fire.

Kumar said he and and several other villagers rushed to the scene and found two pilots with injuries. Both were later taken away by the Indian army.

Pakistan said India’s strikes posed a significant threat to commercial air traffic. “This reckless escalation has brought the two nuclear-armed states closer to a major conflict,” the statement said.

Meanwhile, authorities in Indian-controlled Kashmir shut Srinagar city’s airport for civilian flights following directions from the Indian air force, senior airport official said Javed Anjum said.

Authorities in Indian-controlled Kashmir also closed all schools and other educational institutions in at least seven border areas and the area around Srinagar airport, officials said.

India speaks to US

The Indian Embassy in Washington said in a statement that national security advisor Ajit Doval spoke with U.S. National Security Advisor and Secretary of State Marco Rubio after the strikes. The embassy said “India has credible leads, technical inputs, testimony of survivors” that point towards “the clear involvement of Pakistan-based terrorists in the attack.”

Indian officials said the armed forces had used precision strike weapon systems to carry out the strikes, targeting the headquarters of militant groups Jaish-e-Mohammed in Bahawalpur and Lashkar-e-Taiba in Muridke.

China called on restraint from both sides Wednesday morning following India’s strike into Pakistan.

“China expresses regret over India’s military actions this morning and is concerned about the current developments. China opposes all forms of terrorism,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson said in a statement. “We call on both India and Pakistan to prioritize peace and stability, remain calm and restrained, and avoid taking actions that further complicate the situation.”

Beijing is the largest investor in Pakistan by far, with a $65 billion China–Pakistan Economic Corridor project that spans across the country. China meanwhile also has multiple border claims disputed with India, with one of those claims in the northeastern part of the Kashmir region.
Pakistan And India Say Civilians Killed After India Fires Missiles Into Pakistani Territory (Radio Free Europe)
Radio Free Europe [5/6/2025 4:14 PM, Daud Khattak, 235K]
Pakistan said eight people were killed early on May 7 in missile strikes launched by Indian armed forces and called the attack a "blatant act of war" amid mounting tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbors.

The fighting was the worst in more than two decades and followed an attack by Islamist assailants that killed 26 Hindu tourists in India-controlled Kashmir last month. India blamed Pakistan-based militants for the deadly attack; Pakistan denied involvement.

India said it struck nine Pakistani sites that were "terrorist infrastructure" from which attacks against it were orchestrated.

India said it also suffered deaths among its civilian population. The army said three civilians were killed by Pakistani troops who resorted to "arbitrary" shelling across the Line of Control, the de facto border that divides Kashmir, which is at the center of an 80-year-old territorial dispute between the two countries, and their international borders.

It added that the Indian Army was "responding in proportionate manner."

The director-general of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), Lieutenant General Ahmad Sharif, told a news conference that there had been "24 impacts from India on six places" and these resulted in the killing of eight citizens and the wounding of 35. Another eight are missing.

"Pakistan will return a response to the attack," he said before ending the news conference without taking questions.

He did not mention a report that the country’s air force shot down Indian jets in retaliation. Pakistani Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said on Xthat three Indian jets and one Indian drone had been shot down by Pakistan.

State Of Emergency

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif scheduled an emergency meeting of the National Security Committee for 10 a.m. local time on May 7.

The chief minister of Punjab Province, Maryam Nawaz, declared a state of emergency in the province, which borders India. All schools, colleges, and universities will be closed. Police and other security agencies have been placed on high alert, and doctors on leave have been asked to report for duty.

Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry said the attack posed a significant threat to commercial air traffic, and the country suspended all flights and operations at the Lahore and Islamabad airports for 48 hours.

An Indian military statement referred to the military action as Operation Sindoor and said nine sites were hit.

"A little while ago, the Indian Armed Forces launched ‘OPERATION SINDOOR’, hitting terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir from where terrorist attacks against India have been planned and directed," the statement said.

“Our actions have been focused, measured and non-escalatory in nature. No Pakistan military facilities have been targeted,” the statement said, adding that “India has demonstrated considerable restraint in selection of targets and method of execution.”

The ISPR said India fired missiles at three locations -- Muzaffarabad, the main city of Pakistan-controlled Kashmir; Kotli, also in Pakistan-administered Kashmir; and Bahawalpur in Punjab Province. The Bahawalpur and Muridke areas are considered centers for the banned groups Jaish-e Muhammad and Lashkar-e Jhangvi.

The attack sounded alarm bells in Washington, where US President Donald Trump said he had been informed about the attack and hopes the fighting "ends very quickly." In New York, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed concern about the attack and called for maximum restraint from both countries.

"The world cannot afford a military confrontation between India and Pakistan," Guterres said, according to his spokesman.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio contacted Pakistani national-security adviser Lieutenant General Asim Malik, who is also chief of Pakistan’s prime intelligence agency, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), to discussed the situation.

Rubio also spoke with his counterpart from India and said he would continue to engage with both New Delhi and Islamabad to reach a resolution to the conflict.

"He is encouraging India and Pakistan to re-open a channel between their leadership to defuse the situation and prevent further escalation," said National Security Council spokesman Brian Hughes in a statement.

Soaring Tensions

Tensions have soared between the two countries in the aftermath of the deadly attack on the Hindu tourists.

Hassan Abbas, a professor of international relations at the Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies, told RFE/RL that while terrorism must always be condemned, Pakistan’s hasty framing of the incident as a false-flag operation by India -- without investigation -- is irresponsible. Equally, India’s rush to blame Pakistan without credible evidence only deepens mistrust and raises the risk of escalation, Abbas said.

"We need a different kind of courage now -- the courage to imagine cooperation...not confrontation. In a region facing the twin crises of poverty and climate vulnerability, war is a luxury no one can afford," Abbas said.

Hussain Haqqani, former Pakistani ambassador to the United States and senior fellow at the Anwar Gargash Diplomatic Academy and Hudson Foundation, told RFE/RL that domestic politics on both sides requires the leadership of the two countries to take a nationalistic stance.

The only sane approach in this situation for India is to demonstrate a strike and for Pakistan to respond in a way that the situation should not flare up, Haqqani said.

“But if one side strikes, then another responds, and then the other strikes again and it continues, then it could go out of control,” he added.

Although the people of the two countries are cheering at the moment, it would be the people who would be hurt the most, because the economies of the two countries will suffer, he said.

Tauseef Ahmad Khan, an author and former head of the Mass Communication Department at Federal Urdu University in Karachi, said that India-Pakistan tensions ignite artificial patriotism.

"The 1.5 billion people of the region -- many living in poverty -- are the real victims of this conflict,” Khan said.

Indian media is under the influence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s "Hindutva" ideology, while Pakistani media is tightly controlled by what he called the deep state, Khan told RFE/RL.

"There’s no room left for sanity,” he said.
How world leaders react to Indian strikes in Pakistan after Kashmir attack (Reuters)
Reuters [5/7/2025 4:08 AM, Staff, 126906K]
India said it attacked Pakistan early on Wednesday following a deadly attack on tourists in Kashmir last month. Pakistan reported eight deaths and said it was responding to the Indian strikes.

This is what global leaders have said about the latest hostilities between the nuclear-armed neighbours:

U.S. PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP

"It’s a shame. Just heard about it. I guess people knew something was going to happen based on a little bit of the past. They’ve been fighting for a long time. They’ve been fighting for many, many decades. I hope it ends very quickly."

U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE MARCO RUBIO

"I am monitoring the situation between India and Pakistan closely. I echo @POTUS’s comments earlier today that this hopefully ends quickly and will continue to engage both Indian and Pakistani leadership towards a peaceful resolution."

SPOKESPERSON FOR U.N. SECRETARY-GENERAL ANTONIO GUTERRES

"The Secretary-General is very concerned about the Indian military operations across the Line of Control and international border. He calls for maximum military restraint from both countries. The world cannot afford a military confrontation between India and Pakistan."

JAPAN CHIEF CABINET SECRETARY YOSHIMASA HAYASHI:

"In regard to the terrorist act that occurred in Kashmir on April 22, our country firmly condemns such acts of terrorism. Furthermore, we express strong concern that this situation may lead to further retaliatory exchanges and escalate into a full-scale military conflict. For the peace and stability of South Asia, we strongly urge both India and Pakistan to exercise restraint and stabilize the situation through dialogue."

CHINA FOREIGN MINISTRY SPOKESPERSON:

"China finds India’s military operation early this morning regrettable. We are concerned about the ongoing situation. We urge both sides to act in the larger interest of peace and stability, remain calm, exercise restraint and refrain from taking actions that may further complicate the situation."

ISRAEL’S AMBASSADOR TO INDIA REUVEN AZAR:

"Israel supports India’s right for self defense. Terrorists should know there’s no place to hide from their heinous crimes against the innocent."

RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTRY SPOKESPERSON

"We are deeply concerned about the escalation of military confrontation between India and Pakistan following the terrorist attack near Pahalgam. We call on the parties involved to exercise restraint in order to prevent further deterioration of the situation in the region."

FRENCH FOREIGN MINISTER JEAN-NOEL BARROT

"We call on India as well as on Pakistan to show restraint in order to avoid escalation. Nobody has anything to gain from prolonged confrontation between India and Pakistan. These are two major military powers, that is why we call for restraint"

UNITED ARAB EMIRATES FOREIGN MINISTRY

"Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the UAE Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed has called on India and Pakistan to exercise restraint, de-escalate tensions, and avoid further escalation that could threaten regional and international peace."
Trump calls rising India-Pakistan tension a shame; Rubio speaks to both sides (Reuters)
Reuters [5/6/2025 11:56 PM, Steve Holland and Kanishka Singh, 5.2M]
U.S. President Donald Trump termed rising tension between India and Pakistan a shame, while Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke to officials in the nuclear-armed rivals after India attacked several sites in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

India is an important U.S. partner for Washington, which aims to counter China’s rising influence, while Pakistan remains an ally, despite its diminished importance after the U.S. withdrawal from neighboring Afghanistan in 2021.

Pakistan said it was mounting a response to India’s military actions late on Tuesday, which followed an Islamist militant attack that killed 26 in the Indian-administered side of the Himalayan region on April 22.

"It’s a shame, we just heard about it," Trump told reporters at the White House. "I guess people knew something was going to happen based on a little bit of the past. They’ve been fighting for a long time."

He added, "I just hope it ends very quickly."

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on X he was monitoring the situation closely, while adding that Washington would continue to engage the Asian neighbors to reach a "peaceful resolution."

The State Department said Rubio spoke to the national security advisers of both nations, urging "both to keep lines of communication open and avoid escalation."

The Indian embassy in Washington said Ajit Doval, the Indian national security adviser, briefed Rubio about the military actions, which took place early on Wednesday in Asia.

In recent days, Washington urged the neighbors to work with each other to de-escalate tensions and arrive at a "responsible solution."

Top U.S. leaders, including Trump, offered support to India after the April 22 attack. American officials did not directly blame Pakistan.

Last month analysts said Washington may leave India and Pakistan on their own in the early days of the tension, in part because it has a lot to deal with in achieving diplomatic goals in Russia’s war in Ukraine and Israel’s war in Gaza.

India and Pakistan will figure out relations between themselves, Trump said on April 25: "They’ll get it figured out one way or the other."

In recent days, the U.S. State Department has said it was in touch with both nations at multiple levels and Rubio also held telephone calls last week with them.

Both Hindu-majority India and Islamic Pakistan claim Muslim-majority Kashmir in full, with each controlling only part and having fought wars over the region.

India blamed Pakistan for the April 22 attack. Pakistan denied the claims and called for a neutral investigation.
Trump weighs in on India-Pakistan strikes: ‘I hope it ends very quickly’ (The Hill)
The Hill [5/6/2025 5:52 PM, Brett Samuels, 12829K]
President Trump on Tuesday weighed in on reports of India striking Pakistan in the disputed Kashmir region, calling it a "shame" and expressing hope that the skirmish between the two nations ends quickly.

"It’s a shame. We just heard about it just as we were walking in the doors of the Oval," Trump said during a swearing-in ceremony for Steve Witkoff, his special envoy for the Middle East.

"I guess people knew something was going to happen based on a little bit of the past," Trump said. "They’ve been fighting for a long time, you know? They’ve been fighting for many, many decades, and centuries, actually, if you really think about it. No, I just hope it ends very quickly.".

India’s government said it hit nine sites in Pakistan and on the Pakistan side of the Kashmir region, according to The New York Times.

The strikes followed a militant attack last month in the Indian-controlled part of the Kashmir region, which has been a disputed area between India and Pakistan for decades. India blamed the attack, which killed 26 people, on Pakistan, which has denied responsibility.

Tuesday’s strikes could raise the prospect of a growing conflict between India and Pakistan, both of which have nuclear capabilities.
India vs. Pakistan Is Also U.S. vs. China When It Comes to Arms Sales (New York Times)
New York Times [5/7/2025 2:05 AM, Mujib Mashal, 831K]
The last time India and Pakistan faced off in a military confrontation, in 2019, U.S. officials detected enough movement in the nuclear arsenals of both nations to be alarmed. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was awakened in the middle of the night. He worked the phone “to convince each side that the other was not preparing for nuclear war,” he wrote in his memoir.

That clash quickly cooled after initial skirmishing. But six years later, the two South Asian rivals are again engaged in military conflict after a deadly terrorist attack against tourists in Indian-controlled Kashmir. And this time there is a new element of uncertainty as the region’s most important military alliances have been redrawn.

Changing patterns in the flow of arms illustrate the new alignments in this particularly volatile corner of Asia, where three nuclear powers — India, Pakistan and China — stand in uneasy proximity.

India, a traditionally nonaligned country that has shed its history of hesitance toward the United States, has been buying billions of dollars in equipment from the United States and other Western suppliers. At the same time, India has sharply reduced purchases of low-cost arms from Russia, its Cold War-era ally.

Pakistan, whose relevance to the United States has waned since the end of the war in Afghanistan, is no longer buying the American equipment that the United States once encouraged it to acquire. Pakistan has instead turned to China for the vast majority of its military purchases.

These connections have injected superpower politics into South Asia’s longest-running and most intractable conflict.

The United States has cultivated India as a partner in countering China, while Beijing has deepened its investment in its advocacy and patronage of Pakistan as India has grown closer to the United States.

At the same time, relations between India and China have deteriorated in recent years over competing territorial claims, with clashes breaking out between the two militaries at times. And relations between the world’s two biggest powers, the United States and China, have hit a nadir as President Trump has launched a trade war against Beijing.

This combustible mix shows how complex and messy alliances have become as the post-World War II global order has fractured. The volatility is compounded by South Asia’s history of frequent military confrontations, with armed forces on both sides that are prone to mistakes, increasing the risk that an escalation could get out of hand.

“The U.S. is now central to India’s security interests, while China increasingly plays a comparable role in Pakistan,” said Ashley Tellis, a former diplomat who is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

As India now takes military action against Pakistan, it has had the United States on its side more forcefully than ever in recent years.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India spoke with both Mr. Trump and Vice President JD Vance in the initial days after the April 22 terrorist attack in Kashmir. The strong backing voiced by Trump administration officials was seen by many officials in New Delhi as a green light for India’s plan to retaliate against Pakistan, even if U.S. officials urged restraint.

An indication of the changing dynamics was the conspicuous absence of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia as Mr. Modi took calls from more than a dozen world leaders in the days after the terrorist attack. The Russian foreign minister spoke with his Indian counterpart a week after the attack, and Mr. Modi and Mr. Putin finally spoke this week, officials said.

For its part, China has led public support for Pakistan, describing it as an “ironclad friend and all-weather strategic cooperative partner.”

These trends could increasingly be reflected in military conflicts.

“If you think about what a future conflict between India and Pakistan might look like, it would increasingly look like India fighting with U.S. and European platforms and Pakistan fighting with Chinese platforms,” said Lyndsey Ford, a former senior U.S. defense official who is currently a senior fellow at the Observer Research Foundation America. “The close security partners of both countries have evolved significantly in the last decade.”

Until recent years, Cold War calculations had shaped alliances in South Asia.

India, even as it played a leading role in the nonaligned movement, grew close to the Soviet Union. Weapons and munitions from Moscow made up nearly two-thirds of India’s military equipment.

Pakistan, on the other hand, firmly allied itself with the United States, becoming its frontline partner in helping to defeat the Soviets in Afghanistan. In the 1980s, Pakistan’s military leveraged that relationship to bolster its arsenal, including acquiring dozens of coveted F-16 fighter planes, which helped chip away at the air dominance that India had enjoyed.

After the Cold War, both nations faced American sanctions for testing nuclear weapons in the 1990s. For over a decade, Pakistan was denied delivery of dozens of F-16s it had paid for.

But the country’s fortunes changed again after Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and the Pentagon, as it once again became a frontline partner to the United States, this time in the war on terrorism.

Even as Pakistan was accused of playing a double game, harboring the Taliban’s leaders on its soil while aiding the American military presence in Afghanistan, the U.S. military poured in tens of billions of dollars in military assistance. The United States became Pakistan’s top supplier of weapons, with China remaining second.

As Pakistan’s importance to the United States has declined, it has turned to China, which has long offered an open embrace.

Beijing, which was the source of only 38 percent of Pakistan’s weapons in the mid-2000s, has provided about 80 percent over the past four years, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, which closely studies global weapons flows.

At the same time, India has slashed its dependence on Russian weapons by more than half. Between 2006 and 2010, about 80 percent of India’s major weapons came from Russia. Over the past four years, that figure has fallen to about 38 percent, with more than half of Indian imports coming from the United States and allies like France and Israel.

The one area of exception for Pakistan’s frost with the United States is the F-16 program. Pakistan has expanded its F-16 arsenal over the past two decades, and the Biden administration pushed through a contract worth nearly $400 million for service and maintenance of the fighter jets.

In 2019, Pakistan used an F-16 to down a Russian-made Indian jet. New Delhi protested that the action constituted a breach of the U.S. sales agreement with Pakistan, arguing that it allowed only for counterterrorism missions.

Some American officials appeared to try to placate India by suggesting that they had admonished the Pakistanis. But U.S. diplomatic cables had long made clear that they knew Pakistan’s intention in building its air force: for potential use in conflicts with India.

The 2019 clash — in which one of India’s own helicopters was also shot down, killing half a dozen personnel — exposed the troubles of its military. In the years since, India has been pouring in billions of dollars to modernize its forces. As India now confronts Pakistan, a bigger threat, China, is not only watching but also aiding its adversary.

For many American officials who observed the 2019 developments closely, the human errors made clear how the situation could escalate out of control.

U.S. officials worry that with the hyper-nationalism in both India and Pakistan, where two well-stocked militaries operate in a tight air corridor and amid mutual suspicion, even the smallest of mistakes or exceeding of orders could lead to catastrophic escalations.

“A crisis where you have cross-border airstrikes and an aerial dogfight, like we saw in 2019, carries significant escalation risks,” said Ms. Ford, the former U.S. defense official. “And that’s all the more problematic when it involves two nuclear-armed neighbors.”
Twitter
Afghanistan
Shawn VanDiver
@shawnjvandiver
[5/6/2025 10:15 AM, 33.3K followers, 49 retweets, 207 likes]
MAJOR Court win for Afghan allies — IF the admin complies.
Judge orders U.S. to resume refugee processing for Afghans w/
- Approved USRAP case
- Cleared travel
- Confirmed travel plans (as of Jan 20)
Timeline posted in photos -- Court order linked in #AfghanEvac thread below.

Jahanzeb Wesa
@Jahanzeb_Wesa
[5/7/2025 2:19 AM, 5.8K followers, 2 likes]
No mercy for former Afghan army soldiers. A recent video from Khost shows Taliban fighters storming a home, demanding the surrender of an ex-soldier. Women & children cry & scream, but Taliban raid the house with force. The exact date of the video is unknown.—Video social media.

Jahanzeb Wesa
@Jahanzeb_Wesa
[5/6/2025 3:25 PM, 5.8K followers, 2 retweets, 8 likes]
Strong reaction from protesting women and human rights activists to the proposal of handing Afghanistan’s UN seat to the Taliban: “Catastrophic” and “a betrayal of the Afghan women and people’s aspirations.” They have issued a statement strongly opposing the move. #Afghanistan
Pakistan
Shehbaz Sharif
@CMShehbaz
[5/6/2025 7:06 PM, 6.7M followers, 5.2K retweets, 23K likes]
The treacherous enemy has launched a cowardly attack on five locations within Pakistan. This heinous act of aggression will not go unpunished. Pakistan reserves the absolute right to respond decisively to this unprovoked Indian attack — a resolute response is already underway. The entire nation stands united behind its armed forces, and our morale and resolve remain unshaken. Our thoughts and prayers are with the brave officers and soldiers of Pakistan. The people of Pakistan and its forces are fully prepared to confront and defeat any threat with our strength and determination. The enemy will never be allowed to achieve its malicious aims.

Government of Pakistan
@GovtofPakistan
[5/6/2025 9:19 PM, 3.1M followers, 94 retweets, 350 likes]
Statement by Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif (@CMShehbaz) on the current situation “The Pakistani nation and the Pakistani Armed Forces know how to deal with the enemy very well. The enemy will never be allowed to succeed in his nefarious objectives.” #PakistanZindabad

Government of Pakistan
@GovtofPakistan
[5/6/2025 9:17 PM, 3.1M followers, 48 retweets, 142 likes]
Statement by Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif (@CMShehbaz) on the current situation “The cunning enemy has carried out a cowardly attack on six places in Pakistan. Pakistan has every right to give a befitting reply to this act of war imposed by India and a befitting reply is being given.” #PakistanZindabad

Mariam Solaimankhil
@Mariamistan
[5/6/2025 10:24 PM, 97.9K followers, 62 retweets, 223 likes]
Another brilliant interview by @YaldaHakim on @SkyNews. Pakistan’s Info Minister Ataullah Tarar repeats the usual script- claims Pakistan’s been fighting terrorism and has been a victim of it. But Yalda pushes back, reminding him that Bilawal Bhutto and Khwaja Asif openly admitted Pakistan backed terror groups, blaming the U.S. in a bid to realign with China. This is a tactic. Play victim abroad, project power at home, and pivot toward Beijing.

Mariam Solaimankhil
@Mariamistan
[5/6/2025 6:18 PM, 97.9K followers, 16 retweets, 75 likes]
This is INSANE. Pakistan’s Defense Minister, Khwaja Asif openly threatens global nuclear annihilation: “If Pakistan is threatened, nobody will survive.” This isn’t diplomacy. It’s state-sponsored blackmail with nukes. @UN @IntlCrimCourt @iaeaorg @michaelgwaltz @SecRubio @SecDef @SebGorka @POTUS @JDVance are you watching? The world stayed silent after Bin Laden. Don’t repeat that mistake.

Sabria Chowdhury Balland
@sabriaballand
[5/7/2025 12:09 AM, 8K followers, 1 retweet, 2 likes]
President #Trump states that #Pakistan & India have been fighting for “many, many decades. Centuries.” Pakistan became independent in 1947. The ignorance of western leaders is astounding. #Kashmir
India
Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[5/6/2025 10:56 AM, 108.1M followers, 6.4K retweets, 34K likes]
Speaking at the ABP Network India@2047 Summit. @ABPNews https://x.com/i/broadcasts/1ynJOlNMoynxR

Dr. S. Jaishankar
@DrSJaishankar
[5/6/2025 10:18 PM, 3.4M followers, 37K retweets, 209K likes]
The world must show zero tolerance for terrorism. #OperationSindoor

Zalmay Khalilzad
@realZalmayMK
[5/6/2025 9:53 PM, 262.4K followers, 356 retweets, 1.4K likes]
In response to the terror attack in Kashmir, #India has attacked targets in #Pakistan and Islamabad has responded. A terrible sequence of events. Both sides should work to avoid escalation. The right lessons should be learned that the use of terror is the road to tragedy. #USA

Michael Kugelman
@MichaelKugelman
[5/6/2025 7:14 PM, 221.1K followers, 849 retweets, 4.1K likes]
India’s strike on Pakistan is of much greater scale than the one in 2019. Pakistan’s response, which according to many reports included downing several Indian jets, has also exceeded the scale of 2019. They’re already higher up the escalatory ladder than any time in ‘19 crisis.

Michael Kugelman
@MichaelKugelman
[5/6/2025 4:47 PM, 221.1K followers, 109 retweets, 773 likes]
India has described tonight’s military operation as an effort to target terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan (this is also how it described its actions during the 2016 and 2019 crises). Says no military sites were targeted and that the strikes were meant to be non-escalatory.

Michael Kugelman
@MichaelKugelman
[5/6/2025 4:47 PM, 221.1K followers, 20 retweets, 256 likes]
Pakistan will not view them as non-escalatory, of course.

Michael Kugelman
@MichaelKugelman
[5/6/2025 4:31 PM, 221.1K followers, 270 retweets, 1.7K likes]
India has carried out several missile strikes on Pakistan. The widely expected Indian military response to the Pahalgam attack has begun. Pakistan will respond in some way. What happens after that…we shall see.

Michael Kugelman
@MichaelKugelman
[5/6/2025 2:56 PM, 221.1K followers, 45 retweets, 274 likes]
In today’s press briefing, State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said the US remains in touch with both India and Pakistan: “We’re not watching from afar. We are engaged.” She said the US hopes to see efforts toward a “responsible resolution” of the crisis.

Mariam Solaimankhil
@Mariamistan
[5/7/2025 2:00 AM, 97.9K followers, 47 retweets, 223 likes]
Indian Air Force reportedly struck the Bahawalpur house of Masood Azhar- UN-listed terrorist, founder of Jaish-e-Muhammed, and longtime proxy of Pakistan’s military. 14 terrorists killed. The same man who helped unleash chaos in Kashmir and Afghanistan. No safe havens left. Jai Hind!

Brahma Chellaney
@Chellaney
[5/7/2025 2:12 AM, 274K followers, 185 retweets, 954 likes]
Are these one-off strikes by India? Or, after Pakistan responds, as it has vowed to do, will India hit back with greater force by targeting Pakistan’s terror masters (not just their terrorist proxies)? The answer to this question will determine whether India would be able to deter further Pakistan-scripted terrorist attacks. As the stronger side, India can escalate or de-escalate the situation to its advantage.

Habib Khan
@HabibKhanT
[5/7/2025 2:13 AM, 248.4K followers, 204 retweets, 1.8K likes]
India has warned Pakistan that any retaliation will prompt direct strikes on key air bases in Punjab.

Habib Khan
@HabibKhanT
[5/6/2025 11:04 PM, 248.4K followers, 158 retweets, 825 likes]
India has made it clear that Pakistan-sponsored terror won’t go unanswered. If Pakistan retaliates, India will hit back even harder. That’s why Pakistan is resorting to fake news to save face and control the narrative.

Shubhangi Sharma
@ItsShubhangi
[5/6/2025 11:59 PM, 113.7K followers, 40 retweets, 275 likes]
I didn’t see Operation Sindoor coming so soon, given its massive, devastating scale — it felt too predictable to strike back within two weeks, too on-the-nose given all the mock drills. But India went ahead anyway, hitting Pakistan deep and hard, and targeting terrorist hideouts with precision. The lack of surprise didn’t deter PM Modi or India’s defences. If anything, it shows just how much more they both are capable of. India’s red lines are real.

Shubhangi Sharma
@ItsShubhangi
[5/6/2025 11:26 PM, 113.7K followers, 698 retweets, 3.4K likes]
Asim Munir is a dictator… There is no honest voice right now in Pakistan… The White House should make it clear to Asim Munir “That’s it”. There should be no retaliation.. we have a lot of leverage with Pakistan, we give IMF loans to Pakistan: Ro Khanna

Ro Khanna
@RoKhanna
[5/6/2025 9:30 PM, 348.9K followers, 813 retweets, 2.4K likes]
My discussion on @TheSourceCNN about the tense situation between India and Pakistan and the way forward. https://x.com/i/status/1919927687289712814

Richard Rossow
@RichardRossow
[5/7/2025 2:18 AM, 29.9K followers, 60 retweets, 123 likes]
Whoa! India blows the doors off its record for exports to the U.S. in March- $11.2b, first time it has crossed $10b. Almost 50% higher than the 12 month average. Total bilateral goods trade also sets a record- around $15b for the month. https://census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/c5330.html
NSB
The President’s Office, Maldives
@presidencymv
[5/7/2025 1:27 AM, 113.2K followers, 64 retweets, 57 likes]
Vision is to establish Maldives as a key financial centre focused on Islamic Finance, driven by digital economic transformation: President https://presidency.gov.mv/Press/Article/33670

The President’s Office, Maldives
@presidencymv
[5/7/2025 12:37 AM, 113.2K followers, 100 retweets, 93 likes]
President Dr @MMuizzu attends the launching ceremony of the Maldives Islamic Social Finance Initiative. The initiative is part of his Administration’s strategic commitment to promote Islamic Finance in the Maldives and represents a significant milestone in incorporating social finance within the financial sector.

Abdulla Khaleel
@abkhaleel
[5/6/2025 9:08 AM, 34K followers, 30 retweets, 36 likes]
Today, an MoU was signed between FOSIM and @UPEACE. This MoU will support capacity development, and enhance the caliber and professionalism of the foreign service. We look forward to building a strong partnership that empowers our foreign service officers through a diverse range of educational programmes and resources to inspire learning and create a lasting impact.

Anura Kumara Dissanayake
@anuradisanayake
[5/6/2025 6:40 AM, 151K followers, 26 retweets, 268 likes]
Just cast my vote at Abesingharama Saikoji Preschool, Panchikawatta, for #LGE2025. Proud that under our NPP govt, Sri Lanka is seeing peaceful, democratic elections. Let’s make this the new political culture — free, fair, and dignified.

M U M Ali Sabry
@alisabrypc
[5/7/2025 2:07 AM, 8.1K followers, 5 likes]
Despite the mess created by Local Government Elections Act and accompanying arithmetic jargon , those who have won the largest number of the wards must be given an opportunity to govern . That’s the voice of the people!

M U M Ali Sabry
@alisabrypc
[5/7/2025 12:00 AM, 8.1K followers, 7 likes]
For most of us country comes first no matter. We criticize or opine not to take down governments overnight or to create chaos. Government of the day must do well , that’s how countries do well and progress. That’s how people will do well , and you and me do well. Sri Lanka’s economy grew from 24$ Billion to 85$Billion from 2005-2014. Since then we are struggling to break free and stagnant. Had we continued the growth path , we could achieve around 10k $ per capita, as opposed to current 4K$. Sri Lanka cannot afford to have a failed government as we have seen back to back in the past. In order for the government to do well it must talk less and work more. It must allow , in the cricket parlor, let-the Bat do the talking. There are many low hanging fruits , law and order, digitization, efficient public services and administration, one stop shop for investment promotion and clearance etc. Lets do politics at elections. But , collectively work together to uplift the nation.
Central Asia
Navbahor Imamova
@Navbahor
[5/6/2025 10:02 PM, 24.3K followers]
Uzbekistan to step up fight against cybercrime: Banks may have to compensate victims if crimes occur due to their vulnerabilities. Individuals who allow their bank cards, accounts or SIM cards to be used in cybercrimes may face liability.

{End of Report}
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