The Latest Attack in Kashmir Escalates India-Pakistan Tensions

Manjari Chatterjee Miller is a senior fellow for India, Pakistan, and South Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations, and professor of international relations and Munk chair in Global India at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, University of Toronto.

Hostilities between India and Pakistan have intensified after a deadly militant attack in the contested Kashmir region killed twenty-six people on Tuesday. New Delhi has blamed its neighbor for the attack, but Islamabad has denied any involvement.

The aftermath has led to a series of reprisals and raised fear of military escalation between the two nuclear-armed rivals. Indian officials said that their troops exchanged fire with Pakistani soldiers in Kashmir on Friday.

CFR Senior Fellow Manjari Chatterjee Miller explains what happened and what might come next.

How significant was this week’s attack in Pahalgam, Kashmir?

This terrorist attack is the worst in the state since the car bombing in 2019 in which a bus of Indian paramilitary soldiers was targeted in Pulwama, killing forty people. Furthermore, this attack was one of the worst targeting of civilians—ordinary tourists—in more than two decades. 

So far, The Resistance Front (TRF) has claimed responsibility. The group is a proxy for Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), a terrorist organization with Islamist Salafi roots that primarily operates in the Kashmir Valley. LeT was founded in the 1980s during the Soviet-Afghan War with funding from then–al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

The group is based in Pakistan, and allegedly supported by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency and the Pakistani military. LeT is considered responsible for many other attacks on Indian soil including the 2008 attack in Mumbai and the 2001 attack on the Indian parliament. In 2002, the United States added LeT to its list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO), which forced Pakistan to ostensibly ban the group. However, by many accounts, it continues to operate more or less openly. 

In 2019, LeT leaders formed the core of TRF when India revoked Article 370 of the Indian constitution, which granted special privileges and autonomy to the region. The name was meant to indicate indigenous Kashmiri resistance—as opposed to that of a religious or foreign one—to the Indian government. Since 2020, TRF, rather than the older religious terrorist organizations such as the LeT or Jaish-e-Muhammad (another jihadist group on the FTO list), has claimed responsibility for attacks in Kashmir. 

What do the recent escalations between India and Pakistan indicate?

India-Pakistan relations have been relatively restrained for the last few years, and the border has been stable. This attack could change that situation. India holds Pakistan squarely responsible for the continued ability of LeT to carry out attacks. The civilian government in Pakistan, however, has denied responsibility. But despite the government’s denial, there has been a pattern of terrorist attacks occurring on Indian soil when the Pakistan military feels excluded from the geopolitical conversations. Current events could have given such an impetus: U.S. President Donald Trump has been in office for less than a hundred days, and in that short period, not only has Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Washington, but U.S. Vice President JD Vance was in New Delhi at the time of the attack. The deadly assault presented an opportunity to draw attention to Kashmir. 

Could we expect a coordinated U.S.-Indian security response?

I doubt there will be any overt coordinated response. President Trump made a strong statement of “full support” for India on the social media platform Truth Social, stating the United States “stands strong with India against terrorism.” But when it comes to Kashmir, India prefers to assert its sovereignty unilaterally.

Is there room for resolution at this point, or is further escalation expected?

India has already said it will suspend its participation in the Indus Water Treaty, an agreement signed between India and Pakistan and negotiated by the World Bank in 1960 to distribute and manage water between the countries. The treaty has held through four wars, but if India does follow through, its suspension could restrict the water flows of two major rivers to Pakistan. This would be an unprecedented step that could devastate Pakistan’s agriculture, particularly as Pakistan is already suffering from a huge water shortage.

However, the Indian government is under pressure from the Indian public and media to have a robust response, which could also include military action. Modi has portrayed himself and his government as tough on security, and his government has been showcasing Kashmir as a stable region, safe for its residents and tourists. Exacerbating the tensions, the Pakistani government has declared that if India does block the river waters, it would consider it an “act of war.”

This work represents the views and opinions solely of the author. The Council on Foreign Relations is an independent, nonpartisan membership organization, think tank, and publisher, and takes no institutional positions on matters of policy.