New Delhi — Pakistani authorities accused India on Thursday of a "serious provocation" as the nuclear-armed neighbors' forces clashed in the disputed Kashmir region weeks after a terror attack on Indian tourists sparked a sudden cross-border crisis. India's Ministry of Defense, in a statement released later Thursday, said its drone strike was a response to Pakistani forces firing drones and missiles at Indian military installations overnight.
Pakistani officials said India launched an attack with at least 13 drones early Thursday morning, all but one of which they said were shot down by the country's own military. A military spokesman said one civilian was killed and several troops wounded in the strikes.
India said it was responding to Pakistani attacks overnight that killed 16 people, including three women and five children.
"India has undertaken yet another blatant military act of aggression against Pakistan by sending Harop drones at multiple locations," Lt. Gen. Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, the Pakistani Army spokesman, said at a press briefing on Thursday, adding that the Indian attack, "continues, and the armed forces are on high degree of alert and neutralizing them as we speak."
Chaudhry called the drone attack a "serious, serious provocation" by India.
Security personnel cordon off a street near a site after an alleged drone was shot down in Lahore on May 8, 2025.
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Chaudhry said Pakistan's armed forces managed to "neutralize" 12 drones at various locations, including Lahore, Gujrawala, Chakwal, Rawalpindi, and one near Karachi.
"One drone, however, managed to engage a military target near Lahore partially," Chaudhry said, adding that it had killed one civilian and wounded four Pakistani soldiers.
In its statement, India's Ministry of Defense said the country had made it clear on Wednesday that it had not targeted Pakistani military sites with its missile strike, calling the attack proportionate.
But it said Thursday that Pakistan, overnight, had "attempted to engage a number of military targets in Northern and Western India," listing 15 separate locations, "using drones and missiles."
The Defense Ministry said the drones and missiles "were neutralized," and that debris "is now being recovered from a number of locations that prove the Pakistani attacks."
In response, "Indian Armed Forces targeted Air Defense Radars and systems at a number of locations in Pakistan," the ministry's statement said, describing its reaction as being "in the same domain with same intensity as Pakistan."
The ongoing clashes come a day after India hit nine locations inside Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir with missiles. Pakistan said at least 26 people were killed in that Tuesday night missile attack, which it labeled an "act of war," and that five others died in ongoing cross-border military clashes along the Line of Control that divides Indian and Pakistani-administered portions of Kashmir.
The U.S. State Department issued a new alert on Thursday, ordering all personnel at the consulate in Lahore to shelter in place "due to reports of drone explosions, downed drones, and possible airspace incursions in and near Lahore."
"The Consulate has also received initial reports that authorities may be evacuating some areas adjacent to Lahore's main airport," said the alert, which was shared on the State Department's website and on social media. "U.S. citizens who find themselves in an area of active conflict should leave if they can do so safely."
India's Tuesday night missile attack killed over 100 terrorists in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir, India's Defense Minister Rajnath Singh told politicians in a meeting on Thursday morning, according to a report by India's NDTV. Singh told political opposition leaders the Indian military's "Operation Sindoor," in response to the April terror attack, was continuing.
Police tape surrounds the scene after an alleged Indian drone strike on Karachi, Pakistan, May 8, 2025.
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CBS News' Sami Yousafzai in Islamabad said Pakistan's state-run media showed video Thursday of what it said was debris from downed Indian drones, including in major cities. One of the drones was reportedly intercepted and crashed down on a street lined with food vendors in the densely populated city of Rawalpindi, not far from the General Headquarters of the Pakistani Army.
"It looked like a big bird came down on top of us," Ramadan Muhamad, a local shopkeeper who witnessed the apparent shoot-down, told CBS News on the phone. "There was no explosion, but there was a flash of light when it hit. After the crash, army and security forces quickly arrived and cordoned off the area. Even now, I can't get to my shop."
"War in any form is ugly for humanity," Ramadan said. "A conflict between Pakistan and India is not an ordinary war — God forbid, it could turn into a humanitarian disaster because both countries possess nuclear weapons. So if I say I have no concerns, that wouldn't be an honest statement."
India launched rare national preparedness exercises on Wednesday, bracing for Pakistani retaliation to the missile attack, which the nation's leaders have said they will take at a time and in a manner of their choosing.
The current crisis was sparked by a massacre of tourists last month in Indian-administered Kashmir. Indian officials quickly accused Pakistan of backing the terrorists who carried out the attack, but Pakistan has denied any involvement.
The two nations have fought two wars and countless skirmishes over Kashmir, a picturesque mountainous region that both claim in its entirety.
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