Pakistan accuses India of “serious provocation,” wounding soldiers and killing a civilian in drone attack

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 sudden cross-border crisis.

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.

“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 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.

India did not immediately react to Pakistan’s claim about the drone attack, which came 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 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.

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.