Regional
Pakistan says it has launched military offensive against India
Pakistan said it launched a military operation against India early on Saturday, targeting multiple bases including a missile storage site in northern India as the neighbours extended their worst fighting in nearly three decades.
Pakistan said that before its offensive India had fired missiles at three air bases, including one close to the capital, Islamabad, but Pakistani air defences intercepted most of them, Reuters reported.
Locked in a longstanding dispute over Kashmir, the two countries have engaged in daily clashes since Wednesday when India launched strikes inside Pakistan on what it called “terrorist infrastructure”. Pakistan vowed to retaliate.
“BrahMos storage site has been taken out in general area Beas,” Pakistan’s military said in a message to journalists, adding that the Pathankot airfield in India’s western Punjab state and Udhampur Air Force Station in Indian Kashmir were also hit.
India’s defence and foreign ministries did not immediately respond to a request for comment outside regular business hours. India’s military was expected to brief the media shortly, the ministry of defence said in an advisory to the media.
Pakistan’s information minister said in a post on social media site X that the military operation was named “Operation Bunyanun Marsoos”. The term is taken from the Koran and means a firm, united structure.
Pakistan’s planning minister said on local television that “special measures” had been taken to avoid civilian targets and that they were targeting locations that had been used to target Pakistan.
Pakistan’s military said the prime minister had called a meeting of the National Command Authority, a top body of civilian and military officials, which oversees decisions on its nuclear arsenal.
Sounds of explosions were reported in India’s Srinagar and Jammu, where sirens were sounded, a Reuters witness said.
“India through its planes launched air-to-surface missiles … Nur Khan base, Mureed base and Shorkot base were made targets,” Pakistan military spokesman Lieutenant General Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry said in a late-night televised statement.
The chief minister of Indian Kashmir Omar Abdullah said in a statement a local administration official had been killed by shelling in Rajouri, near the line of control that divides the contested region.
One of the three air bases that Pakistan said were targeted by India is in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, just outside the capital Islamabad. The other two are in Pakistan’s eastern province of Punjab, which borders India.
The Pakistani military spokesman said only a few missiles made it past air defences, and those did not hit any “air assets”, according to initial damage assessments.
India has said its strikes on Wednesday, which started the clashes between the countries, were in retaliation for a deadly attack on Hindu tourists in Indian Kashmir last month.
Pakistan denied India’s accusations that it was involved in the tourist attack. Since Wednesday, the two countries have exchanged cross-border fire and shelling, and sent drones and missiles into each other’s airspace.
Much of the fighting on Friday was in Indian Kashmir and states bordering Pakistan. India said it shot down Pakistani drones.
The Group of Seven countries on Friday urged maximum restraint from both India and Pakistan and called on them to engage in direct dialogue. The United Kingdom’s High Commissioner to Pakistan, Jane Marriott, said in a statement on social media platform X that they were monitoring the developments closely.
Sounds of explosions were also heard in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore and the northwestern city of Peshawar, as the fighting threatened to spread.
At least 48 people have been killed since Wednesday, according to casualty estimates on both sides of the border that have not been independently verified.
The Islamic Iran Nation’s Union Party sought the release of secretary-general Azar Mansouri, the Shargh newspaper said on Monday, after her arrest along with other members of the Reform Front, an umbrella body of Iranian reformists and moderates.
A campaign of mass arrests and intimidation has led to the arrests of thousands as authorities seek to deter further protests after last month’s crackdown on the bloodiest unrest since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
On Sunday, state media said three senior figures from Iran’s Reform Front were arrested, among them Ebrahim Asgharzadeh, Mohsen Aminzadeh, and Azar Mansouri, who acts as the front’s head, according to Reuters.
Shargh said at least two more Reform Front members were asked to report to the prosecutor’s office in Tehran’s Evin prison on Tuesday.
The Reform Front’s spokesperson, Javad Emam, was also arrested, Mansouri’s lawyer, Hojjat Kermani, said on Monday, adding that it was unclear what charges faced those detained.
“We basically don’t know what caused these arrests, because the Reform Front has not yet issued a statement about the recent events (protests),” Kermani told the Iranian Labour News Agency (ILNA). “Individuals may have commented on their own.”
On Sunday, the judiciary’s media outlet Mizan said “four important political elements supporting the Zionist (regime) and the United States” were indicted, but gave no details.
Tehran has blamed unrest-related violence on “rioters and armed terrorists” it says were backed by its key enemies, Israel and the United States.
Past Reform Front statements have been highly critical of authorities. After the 12-day war against Israel, its members warned that “incremental collapse” awaited the country if it did not adopt fundamental reforms.
Kermani said the recent arrests were not related to a judicial case launched against the Front after that statement, however.
An explosion at a small biotech company in northern China early Saturday killed eight people, China’s state media reported on Sunday.
The explosion occurred in Shuoyang in the Shanxi province in the early morning of Saturday, state media reported, according to Reuters.
The legal representative of Jiapeng Biotechnology has been detained and the city has set up an accident investigation team, Xinhua News Agency reported.
The firm is located in a mountain hollow and dark yellow smoke was seen billowing from the accident site, Xinhua said.
Reuters was not able to contact the company, which does not maintain a website. The cause of the reported explosion was not immediately clear.
Founded in June 2025, Jiapeng Biotechnology conducts research on animal feed, coal products and building materials, according to its corporate registration.
Iran’s foreign minister on Friday described talks with the United States in Oman as a “good start,” saying the negotiations “can also have a good continuation,” Iranian state media reported.
The discussions, mediated by Oman, marked a resumption of nuclear diplomacy between Tehran and Washington. Iranian state media said the current round of talks concluded on Friday, with both delegations returning to their respective capitals.
Speaking to state media reporters in Muscat, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said the talks’ progress depends on the U.S. and on decisions made in Tehran.
Araghchi said a “significant challenge” remains, citing a prevailing atmosphere of distrust. He said Iran’s priority is to overcome this distrust and then establish an agreed framework for the talks and the issues on the table.
He described the talks as a fresh round of dialogue after eight turbulent months that included a war, saying the accumulated distrust presents a major obstacle to negotiations.
“If this same approach and perspective are maintained by the other side, we can reach an agreed framework in future sessions,” Araghchi said, adding that he did not want to judge prematurely.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei also confirmed on the social media platform X that both sides agreed to continue talks and would decide the next round in consultation with their capitals.
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