India, Pakistan Trade Gunfire & Build-Up Militaries After Kashmir Terror Attack

Tensions between historic nuclear-armed enemies Indian and Pakistan are soaring, with Western officials closely watching amid fears they are barreling toward a new war along the border. The United Nations is desperately urging 'maximum restraint'.

Indian officials have confirmed Friday that Indian and Pakistani soldiers briefly exchanged fire along their highly militarized frontier in the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir, according to The Associated Press.

Small arms were used by both sides in the gunfight, and no casualties have as of yet been reported, a briefing by an Indian official indicated, in the first such live-fire incident since 2021. It also violates a pledge from the same year for the two nations to observe a ceasefire along the disputed Line of Control between Indian and Pakistani controlled areas of Kashmir.

Widely circulating videos suggest that India has been rushing troops and military equipment to the border in readiness for potential escalation or any scenario.

No details have been issued as to the precise location of the new exchange of gunfire:

Indian army sources told Al Jazeera on Friday that the Pakistani side initiated the shooting. A government official in Pakistan-administered Kashmir also confirmed to the AFP news agency on Friday that troops exchanged fire, but did not say who started the exchange.

“There was no firing on the civilian population,” Syed Ashfaq Gilani, the Pakistani official, told AFP.

A war of words and accusations have broken out between Pakistani and Indian officials after India on Tuesday suffered one of its worst terror attacks in recent years. Islamist gunmen conducted mass killings in a picturesque and tourist-poplar spot in the disputed and Indian-administered region of Kashmir.

26 people were killed, and nearly all of the dead were travelers visiting a popular tourist destination in the Baisaran Valley, which is only accessible by foot or horseback. A huge military rescue operation and search for victims ensued. 

Indian leaders and media have been charging that Pakistan had harbored and backed the militant group that committed the atrocities. But Islamabad has shot back with accusations that India orchestrated a false flag.

Pakistani Defesce Minister Khawaja Asif claimed in a Thursday interview with Al Jazeera that the attack was "orchestrated" and rejected India’s claims that Pakistan was involved.

India is booting out all Pakistanis, canceling their visas and sealing the border, while both sides have effectively closed their airspace to the other. Crucially Indian has also canceled a landmark water treaty which determines usage of several rivers which crisscross both countries.

Indian shares were the worst performers in Asia on Friday amid the soaring tensions...

The water issue will could impact hundreds of millions of people on both sides of the border, as the 1960 Indus Water Treaty delineates how water is distributed and used from six rivers that flow through both countries, starting in disputed regions of the Himalayas in the north.

Pakistan's National Security Committee has declared that if India moves forward with suspending the Indus Water Treaty, which was carefully mediated by the World Bank, it "will be considered as an Act of War."

Meanwhile, India’s Prime Minister Modi has pledged to hunt the gunmen to the "ends of the earth", after a little-knowns group calling itself "The Resistance Front" claimed responsibility for the attack in a social media post.