Samedi 17 mai 2025
India and Pakistan, old enemies, are engaged in their most expansive military conflict in decades, and with continued shelling and further drone attacks on Friday, they are using new tools of war to enhance their ability to attack and spy on each other.
On Friday, India defense officials said Pakistan’s
military had attempted aerial intrusions in 36 locations with “300 to 400” drones
to test India’s air-defense system.
A day earlier, Pakistani military officials
said they had shot down 25 drones belonging to India, including in Karachi and
Rawalpindi, the headquarters of Pakistan’s main intelligence body. Pakistani
officials also told U.S, officials that India was engaging in “drone terrorism”
by targeting civilian areas, according to a statement. India has not commented
on the drones.
Although many countries now have drones in
their arsenals, this is the first time the unmanned aerial vehicles are being
used by the two nuclear-armed countries against each other. The use of drone
warfare may have been inevitable, but it could reshape the way the world views
hostilities between India and Pakistan, much as it did after the two countries
became nuclear powers in the 1990s.
The conflict began after militants killed
26 people last month in India-controlled Kashmir. India accused Pakistan of
being behind the attacked and vowed to take military action. Pakistan has
denied involvement.
The conflict has escalated since Wednesday,
when India conducted airstrikes on Pakistan. Since then, the two countries have
been locked in an intensifying exchange of gunfire, drone attacks, claims, counterclaims
and misinformation.
India and Pakistan have been developing
their respective drone-building industries in recent years, and both import
drones from foreign allies. But neither country appears to have any that can
carry nuclear warheads, said James Patton Rogers, a drone warfare expert at
Cornell University. And while he called the conflict “incredibly worrying, ” he
also noted that drones generally are used as the lowest possible escalatory step
in a conflict, usually to pressure and test an opponent’s air defenses.
(Anupreeta Das)
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