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Pakistan and India on high alert amid airport shutdowns and security drills in major cities

Tensions are high across India and Pakistan, with airports shut down and security drills under way in major border cities, after warnings by Pakistan that it intended to retaliate for Wednesday’s strikes.

In a speech late on Wednesday night, the prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, said he would “solemnly swear that we will avenge each and every drop of blood of our martyrs”, after India’s missile airstrikes on Pakistan in the early hours of Wednesday, which killed 31 people across the country.

Nine locations, including four in Pakistan’s Punjab region, were targeted in the precision air and drone strikes, in what was India’s most extensive military attack on Pakistan in decades.

On Thursday morning, Pakistani officials claimed their air defence systems had shot down an Indian drone overnight as it flew close to an airfield in the border city of Lahore. There was no immediate comment from India.

Across both countries, flights were suspended and airports shut down. In Pakistan, all flights from Karachi, Lahore and Sialkot airports were suspended until Thursday afternoon. More than 20 local airports across the north of India were closed until Saturday.

In Pakistan’s Sindh region, which shares a border with India, a state of emergency was declared in all hospitals and health facilities, and all medical personnel and support staff leave was cancelled, according to a notice issued by the provincial health department.

In India’s city of Amritsar, 20 miles from the Pakistan border, a second security drill and brief blackout was carried out on Wednesday evening, and residents were urged to stay alert.

India’s border states of Rajasthan and Punjab were also put on high alert, with all police leave cancelled and border security forces given shoot-on-sight orders for any suspicious activities. India has activated anti-drone systems near the border.

Sharif called India’s attacks an “act of war”, and senior army officials and government ministers vowed that Pakistan would respond. However, by Thursday morning the nature of that response remained unclear.

Some government ministers suggested that Pakistan’s claim to have shot down five Indian military aircraft, including three elite French-made Rafale jets, during the confrontation on Wednesday was retribution, while others said Pakistan’s full response was yet to come.

It is widely acknowledged that any decision over Pakistan’s military response to India will be made by the country’s army chief, Gen Asim Munir, who is under mounting public pressure to show strength against India.

Ministers in the Indian government said their attacks were retribution for Pakistan’s alleged involvement in a militant attack in the Indian region of Kashmir in April that killed 26 people. Pakistan has denied any role in that attack.

India claimed Wednesday’s strikes targeted “terrorist infrastructure” including training camps and homes belonging to well-known militant organisations that have been behind some of the worst terror attacks in India over the past two decades. They emphasised they had not hit any Pakistani military bases or equipment, and described the strikes as “measured, not escalatory, proportionate and responsible”.

However, Pakistan denied that any terror groups had been operating in the areas hit by Indian missiles, and said the strikes had targeted only civilians.

Along the contested border between India and Pakistan, which divides the disputed region of Kashmir, intensive cross-border shelling between the two sides continued into a second night. It was reported that at least one Indian soldier had been killed in the firing and 11 civilians and local residents continued to be evacuated from the area.

The international community continued to call for the two sides to de-escalate. The Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, landed in Delhi on Thursday morning where he will hold talks with his Indian counterpart. Araghchi visited Pakistan earlier this week and has offered to play a mediating role between the two countries.

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