The long-simmering conflict in Kashmir, India, blew up on Tuesday, when Islamic Kashmir separatists killed 26 tourists and injured over a dozen others.
The attack was the deadliest terrorist attack in India since the 2008 Mumbai attacks, which killed 166 and injured hundreds more. The attack has left India reeling and marks the latest development in a conflict spanning decades. The conflict could have global repercussions, as India and Pakistan each possess hundreds of nuclear weapons.
Here is everything you need to know about the situation in Kashmir:
Twenty-five Indians and one Nepalese citizen were killed. Since the group was in an area only accessible by foot or horseback, getting the injured to the nearest hospital was difficult, one witness told the Washington Post.
What happened in Kashmir?
On Tuesday afternoon, a group of gunmen approached groups of mostly Indian tourists outside the tourist town of Pahalgam in Indian-controlled Kashmir. According to multiple witnesses, the gunmen first asked if the tourists were Muslim, then opened fire if they weren’t. Because the area is only reachable by horseback and largely barren of security forces, the terrorists’ task was easier.
One witness told the New York Times that the “terrorists came at leisure, strolling around and asking people their names.”
“They took their time to kill, but no security was there for miles around,” he added.
Another witness, identified as Ms. Pandey, said several men in uniform approached her and her husband. After figuring out they weren’t Muslim, they killed her husband but said they would not kill her.
“Go back and tell your government what happened,” they said.
One local Muslim, Syed Adil Hussain Shah, was also killed in the attack. Working as a pony handler, he was hailed as a hero for trying to stop the attack and died while trying to grab one of the gunmen’s weapons.
The inaccessibility of the area made medical evacuation difficult. Two wounded victims died on their way to the hospital. All 26 victims were men, according to University of Bradford professor M. Sudhir Selvaraj.
The group responsible, the Resistance Front, justified the attack by saying it was an attack on “outsiders” settling in Kashmir.
“Consequently, violence will be directed toward those attempting to settle illegally,” the message read, according to Al Jazeera.
The attack was the deadliest against civilians in Kashmir since 2000. Most attacks as part of the insurgency are directed against soldiers or police.
What is the conflict in Kashmir about?
The division of the Indian subcontinent stems back to the Islamic expansion into the area beginning in the 12th century, particularly during the conquests of the Mughal Emperor Akbar the Great in the late 16th century. Historian William Dalrymple traces the current sectarian divisions to the reign of Emperor Aurangzeb, who shattered the empire’s religious pluralism by trying to impose orthodox Islam on the populace.
In the 19th and 20th centuries, Muslim intellectuals began espousing the “Two-Nation Theory,” believing Muslim and Hindu Indians belonged to two irreconcilable cultures and civilizations. Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of modern Pakistan, came to lead the camp while advocating this view. When the weary British Empire decided to abandon India in 1947, it partitioned the country into Hindu India and Muslim West and East Pakistan, the latter of which would break off to become Bangladesh in 1971.
Massacres and one of the 20th century’s largest refugee crises marked the chaotic partition as Muslims and Hindus scrambled to reach their new states. Hundreds of thousands died at the hands of Hindu and Muslim extremists while an estimated 15 million fled.
Kashmir, the picturesque northernmost province, quickly became the most disputed part of the partition. The province was majority Muslim but ruled by a Hindu elite. The head of Kashmir, Hari Singh, initially sought to become independent, then joined India after Pakistan and Pashtun tribesmen invaded. India and Pakistan failed to hold the United Nations’s recommended plebiscite and divided the territory along a ceasefire line in 1949.
The simmering conflict over Kashmir played a central role in sparking the long-lasting rivalry between the two states. The two have fought wars over the region in 1965 and 1999, and there have been several skirmishes or wider conflicts involving the region. The 1999 Kargil War remains the only major war directly fought between two nuclear-armed states.
Indian-administered Kashmir has witnessed a long-running insurgency from Islamic militants, backed covertly by Pakistan. The two almost went to war in February 2019, when India launched cross-border airstrikes into Pakistan against alleged terrorist training camps. The airstrikes were launched in retaliation for a suicide bombing against an Indian paramilitary convoy, killing 40.
Tensions further increased in August 2019 when the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party revoked Kashmir’s long-standing autonomous status, a move combined with a police crackdown on dissent in the region.
One of the largest and most advanced jihadist groups involved in the Kashmir dispute is the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Tayyiba, according to the U.S. Director of National Intelligence. An offshoot of the group formed in response to the 2019 revocation, TRF, claimed responsibility for the attack. A senior Indian security official told the New York Times that New Delhi believes TRF is a proxy for Lashkar-e-Tayyiba.
How is India responding?
India has long accused Pakistan of directly backing Islamic insurgents in Kashmir, a charge denied by Islamabad.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi vowed to hunt down all those involved in the planning and execution of Tuesday’s attack.
“India will identify, track and punish every terrorist, their handlers and their backers. We will pursue them to the ends of the earth. India’s spirit will never be broken by terrorism,” he said.
New Delhi’s response quickly placed blame directly on Pakistan for the attack. Visas for Pakistani citizens were limited, many Pakistanis were given a deadline to leave the country, diplomatic ties were downgraded, a land border between the two was shut down, and Pakistani military advisers were expelled from the New Delhi mission.
The most severe move, however, was the suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty, which controls the rivers that feed Pakistan’s irrigation system. Irrigation is vital to the country of 247.5 million, where agriculture makes up about one-quarter of its gross domestic product and 37.4% of employment. The majority of the population is directly or indirectly dependent on agriculture, according to the country’s statistics bureau.
Though any attempt by India to impede the flow of the rivers going into Pakistan would take years to take effect, Islamabad viewed the move as alarming enough to be considered an act of war.
“Any attempt to stop or divert the flow of water belonging to Pakistan as per the Indus Waters Treaty … will be considered as an act of war and responded with full force across the complete spectrum of national power,” a statement from Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said.
Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri argued the move was justified due to Islamabad’s alleged support for terrorism.
“The Indus Waters Treaty of 1960 will be held in abeyance with immediate effect until Pakistan credibly and irrevocably abjures its support for cross-border terrorism,” he said, meaning it would be suspended.
How is Pakistan involved?
Pakistan has long been at a major disadvantage in its wars with India due to its vastly smaller land mass and population. According to journalist Steve Coll in his Pulitzer Prize-winning history Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001, Pakistan switched to relying on jihadist insurgents in its fight against India after its humiliating loss in the 1971 Indo-Pakistan War. This strategy became well-known due to its support of the Mujahideen in Afghanistan during its war with the Soviet Union, but it also became a key tool to use in Kashmir against India.
The Pakistani military and its main intelligence agency, Inter-Services Intelligence, have been accused of directly backing jihadist terrorist groups, including Jaish-e-Mohammed, Lashkar-e-Tayyiba, and Jama’at-ud-Dawa. The Observer Research Foundation think tank cited the Indian military’s recovery of advanced equipment used by the Pakistani military on Kashmiri militants, including Chinese encrypted telecommunications devices.
Pakistan has denied providing any support for separatist groups in Kashmir aside from politically and morally. It objected to any accusations that it was involved in Tuesday’s terrorist attack.
“We are concerned at the loss of tourists’ lives,” Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesman Shafqat Ali Khan said. “We extend our condolences to the near ones of the deceased and wish the injured a speedy recovery.”
Islamabad took a number of punitive measures against India over its diplomatic maneuvering, including the closure of its airspace to Indian aircraft and a prohibition on Indian transit through the country.
Despite the heightened tensions, Pakistani officials said they saw no signs of Indian military mobilization, according to the New York Times.
Where does the US stand?
The United States’s relationship with Pakistan and India is complicated, though Pakistan has been more favored in the past. India was viewed with skepticism for much of the Cold War due to its neutrality, while Pakistan explicitly aligned itself with the West. Washington controversially backed Islamabad during the 1971 War of Bangladeshi independence, which oversaw what many analysts describe as a genocide against Bangladeshis.
The U.S.-Pakistani alliance saw its zenith during the Soviet-Afghan War, when the CIA used Pakistan’s ISI to fund and arm the Afghan Mujahideen. Some of these groups would later grow into the Taliban and Al Qaeda. According to Carter Malkasian in his seminal history of the War in Afghanistan, Pakistani officials openly told the U.S. that it would continue to back jihadists in Afghanistan, as they were a reliable partner.
The continuing alleged support for the Taliban and other terrorist groups has caused relations between the U.S. and Pakistan to sour in recent years, especially as Washington seeks to warm relations with the much larger India. President Donald Trump has spoken highly of Modi, and his allies have openly criticized the incumbent Pakistani government for its treatment of imprisoned former Prime Minister Imran Khan, a figure often compared with Trump.
Vice President JD Vance was in India at the time of Tuesday’s terrorist attack. He was quick to condemn the attack.
He praised the U.S.’s relationship with India during a speech in Jaipur.
“Now I believe that our nations have much to offer to one another, and that’s why we come to you as partners, looking to strengthen our relationship,” Vance said.
“Now we’re not here to preach that you do things any one particular way. Too often in the past, Washington approached Prime Minister Modi with an attitude of preaching,” the vice president added.
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Murtaza Solangi, a former interim information minister, spoke with the New York Times and hinted that the current crisis is much more dangerous and unpredictable due to the U.S.’s changing position.
“During the last escalation, both India and Pakistan were lucky to step down from the ladder,” he said. “This time, we’re in a more dangerous phase. A fractured global order and India’s hyperventilating media make it harder for Modi to act rationally. Both countries will be net losers if India doesn’t stop this madness.”