PAKISTAN have vowed to take revenge for “every drop” of blood spilt in their raging conflict against India.
The nuclear-armed neighbors are now on the verge of an all-out war as deadly Indian missile strikes continued overnight, reportedly resulting in numerous fatalities.
In a televised address to the nation, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said 26 people had been killed in the latest round of enemy strikes.
A seven-year-old boy was among the victims, the PM claimed.
Sharif delivered a stark warning to the Indian government, stating, “I vow that we will avenge every drop of blood of these victims.”
He also called on Pakistanis to show “courage” in the face of evil across the border.
Pakistan’s military has already made a number of threats against India waning of an escalation to the fighting.
Sharif also repeated claims that his men have shot down several Indian fighter jets – including three French-made Rafales.
He went on to lash out and say it “took only a few hours” to bring the Indian military “to its knees” in a revenge blitz.
The fiery comments come after Islamabad accused India’s missile strikes of deliberately targeting civilians.
They branded it a “cowardly and unlawful act of war” as images showed the devastation left behind after the attacks.
Horrified locals stood inside their crumbling homes as smoke continued to rise across the region early into the morning.
India has insisted it only hit terror infrastructure in a planned operation labelled “Operation Sindoor”.
They said they only hit nine sites used by militants and avoided any civilian casualties despite PM Sharif’s death toll claims.
According to The Times of India, the strikes allegedly took the lives of family members and close associates of Masood Azhar, the leader of the Islamist militant group Jaish-e-Mohammad.
New Delhi also claims 70 terrorists were killed across nine terror camps, local outlet NDTV reports.
India’s Ministry of Defence said the strikes were in retaliation to a “barbaric” mass shooting in Kashmir last month, when 26 people were killed by gunmen.
India blames Pakistan for the shooting – but the latter denies any involvement.
Elsewhere, heavy gunfire broke out along the volatile Line of Control in Kashmir.
It comes as US President Donald Trump spoke on the ongoing battle and said he is prepared to do “anything to help”.
Sir Keir Starmer also told Parliament Britain is now “engaging urgently” with both of the Commonwealth countries.
The prime minister said he is “encouraging dialogue” and urging “de-escalation”.
India and Pakistan are being urged to step back from armageddon as a nuclear war between the two rivals could kill up to 125 million people.
Peace campaigners like the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons are “gravely concerned” and have called for the two sides to step back from the brink.
India and Pakistan only have small stockpiles of nuclear weapons compared to Russia or America – but they have a viscous rivalry and longstanding feud over Kashmir.
New Delhi is estimated to have 170 nuclear warheads and can deliver them through land, sea, or air.
Islamabad was last officially thought to also have 170 weapons – but that could have grown that arsenal to around 200.
Colonel Philip Ingram, a former British Army commander, said the West will be particularly nervous about a nuclear conflict.
Ingram told The Sun: “Western intelligence in particular will be focused on the readiness and the outloading of nuclear stocks inside both Pakistan and India and monitoring what’s happening to them very closely indeed.
“The worrying thing about these two nations is that the tensions are very real.”
What is the Kashmir conflict about?
THE region of Kashmir has always been a contentious issue even before India and Pakistan won their independence from Britain.
But the current conflict stems from how the region was split up as the two countries were gaining independence.
Indian troops took two-thirds of Kashmir, while Pakistan seized the northern third.
Since then, two wars have been fought between the two countries and the row has developed into one of the most intense geopolitical rivalries on earth.
There are about 16 million people in Kashmir, split between the Indian-controlled and Pakistani-controlled zones.
