'Ready to refrain,' says Pakistan as India mounts military pressure after Operation Sindoor

Pakistani Defence Minister Khawaja Asif has said that Pakistan would refrain from attacking India if India would not undertake another round of strikes.

“We have been saying all along in the last fortnight that we’ll never initiate anything hostile towards India. But if we’re attacked, we’ll respond. If India backs down, we will definitely wrap up this tension,” Asif told Bloomberg TV.

India conducted strikes on nine terrorist sites in Pakistan and Pakistan Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (POJK) in the early hours of Wednesday under ‘Operation Sindoor’, according to an official statement.

The sites that struck India were those from “where terrorist attacks against India have been planned and directed”, the statement read.

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Following the Indian strikes, Pakistan also mounted a response and launched warplanes and cross-border attacks on the ground. Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has dubbed the Indian action as an “act of war”.

The nine targets that India struck are:

• Markaz Subhan Allah, Bahawalpur;

• Markaz Taiba, Muridke

• Sarjal Tehra Kalan

• Mehmoona Joya Facility, Sialkot

• Markaz Ahle Hadith Barnala, Bhimber

• Markaz Abbas, Kotli

• Maskar Raheel Shahid, Kotli

• Shawai Nallah Camp, Muzaffarabad

• Markaz Syedna Bilal

Bahawalpur and Muridke in Pakistan’s Punjab are highly important in addition to Muzaffarabad in POJK.

Jaish-e-Mohammed’s headquarter is in Bahawalpur, Lashkar-e-Taiba’s HQ is in Muridke, and Hizbul Mujahideen’s HQ is in #Muzaffarabad.