Start of Kashmir: Escalation threatens between India and Pakistan

After the devastating terrorist attack in the Kashmir unrestruid region with 26 deaths, the nuclear powers India and Pakistan are on the course of confrontation. Both countries ordered the expulsion of citizens of the other side from their territory. Pakistan also announced in response to previously decided measures to block its flight area for Indian airlines and showed diplomats from the country. Pakistan also closed its most important border crossing to India. Pakistani diplomats had to leave Indian soil on Wednesday.

India assumes that the neighboring country is responsible for the attack. The government in Neu-Delhi spoke of cross-border connections in the attack and accused the neighbor to support terrorism. Pakistan had rejected any participation in the attack.

Armed attackers had killed 26 people on Tuesday on a mountain meadow in a popular holiday area near the city of Pahalgam in the part of Kaschmir managed by India, at least 17 others were injured. Most of them were Indian holiday guests. The government classifies the targeted attack on tourists as a terrorist act. Indian media reported that an Islamist terrorist group with possible connections to Pakistan had claimed the attack. In a message from the Indian police, today it was said that two of the attackers were identified as Pakistan. On the basis of what information you were identified, remained unclear.

Military escalation?

In the meantime, concern in India is growing, the country’s military could attack, among other things, suspected bases of terrorist groups on Pakistani soil or other destinations. Prime Minister Narendra Modi threatened in a public speech in the Indian state of Bihar with a view to the attack, “inhuman terrorists and their co -conspirators are punished more than they can imagine”. The time had come to destroy every piece of land on which it is.

In Germany, observers were concerned. “The developments mark a significant tightening in the already tense bilateral relationships between the two nuclear powers,” said Shahina Gambir, who is South Asia rapporteur at the Greens faction. Both states would have to avoid a military escalation under all circumstances.

India had already taken measures against the neighboring state on Wednesday. Among other things, the government announced that it was an important contract with the neighbor about the use of the rivers in the Himalayan region for an indefinite period.

Pakistan reacted with a sharp threat a day later: Any attempt to stop or redirect the watercourse would be regarded as a war action “and answered with the entire spectrum of national power,” said the Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.

South Asia expert Michael Kugelman sees significant signs of a new escalation level. “The importance of the suspension of the Indus water contract can hardly be overestimated,” Kugelman writes on the online platform X. There was no such measure beforehand.

The mostly Muslim cashmere has been controversial since the independence of Great Britain in 1947. The two South Asian nuclear powers repeatedly accuse themselves of injuries to the ceasefire in the divided region. Ribeal groups fight in the Indian part of Kashmir for independence from the mostly Hindu India – or for a merger with Pakistan.