What We Know About How the 4-Day India and Pakistan Clashes Unfolded

The spark for the recent conflict between India and Pakistan was a terrorist attack on the Indian side of Kashmir on April 22. India pointed to its neighbor’s history of sheltering terrorist groups and initiated a cross-border military campaign.

It quickly escalated into four nights of clashes in which the two countries hit deeper into each other’s territory than at any time in half a century, and that was unprecedented in how the use of new-generation technology created a dizzying escalation in the skies.

While the damage on both sides will take weeks and months to tally, particularly in a space of media blackouts and extreme disinformation, here is what we know about how the clashes played out.

The First Shots

In its opening round of airstrikes, in the pre-dawn hours on Wednesday, India struck targets deeper inside the enemy territory than it had in decades, and by all accounts had hit close enough to facilities associated with terrorist groups that it could claim victory.

But it quickly became clear that it had not been a clean strike, but more of a protracted dogfight between the two air forces — both sides with their jets in the sky going at each other, with the boundary between them as a line that neither crossed. And India lost aircraft in the exchanges, including at least two of its most advanced fighter jets.

The Escalations

On the second day, as a diplomatic push for an off-ramp intensified, India said it had thwarted a Pakistani attempt overnight to hit military targets across over a dozen border cities and towns. In response, it had taken the kind of action that analysts say almost always escalates a conflict: It struck sensitive military targets, particularly air defense systems in the Pakistani city of Lahore.