News agency Asian News International is reporting that Pakistan is targeting Jammu with "loitering munitions" - drones which crash into targets with their built in warheads.

The news agency also reports that Indian air defences are firing back.

Indian army sources tell the BBC that the defence system in Jammu has been activated while air sirens sound across the city.

An eyewitness on the Gujjar Nagar bridge in Jammu city tells the BBC that he counted 16 objects falling close to Jammu Airport.

Meanwhile, a security source tells AFP news agency there have been explosions at the airport.

The eyewitness told the BBC that markets shut and they saw people running, as sirens blared and power shut down across the city.

We've just received reports from the city of Jammu, in Indian-administered Kashmir's southern province.

An eyewitness tells the BBC there is a blackout and they can hear sirens.

We'll bring you more on this as soon as we get it.

Officials in Islamabad have claimed that Pakistani forces shot down five Indian fighter jets on Wednesday morning. India has so far declined to comment.

But BBC Verify has authenticated three videos which purport to show the wreckage of a French-manufactured Rafale fighter - which are used by the Indian Air Force.

Image source,X/@Defence_PK99

In one clip - geolocated by BBC Verify to a field near the city of Bathinda in India's Punjab state - troops can be seen collecting debris from the crashed jet.

We have also located two further clips from the same location filmed at night. One shows debris in the field, while another shows a projectile catching fire in the sky, and then fire in an open field.

Justin Crump, a former British Army Officer who runs the risk intelligence company Sibylline, told BBC Verify the wreckage appears to be a French air-to-air missile of a type used on both Mirage 2000 and Rafale fighter jets.

Another image circulating on social media shows a tail fin with “BS001” and “Rafale” inscribed on it. Google reverse image searches don’t show any old versions of the image.

We're starting to get a few lines from a phone call between Pakistan's Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Rubio stressed the need for India and Pakistan to work closely to de-escalate their conflict, Sharif's office says, according to Reuters news agency.

Sharif reaffirmed Pakistan's commitment to defend "sovereignty and territorial integrity at all costs", the news agency adds.

Anbarasan Ethirajan
South Asia Regional Editor

Image source,Getty Images

The ongoing India-Pakistan crisis has taken a dangerous turn. Both nations have for the first time carried out mass drone attacks, including on military installations.

Pakistan said it had shot down 25 Indian drones, some far from the disputed Kashmir region. India said it had neutralised Pakistani attack drones and also claimed it had destroyed an air defence system in Lahore (Islamabad has denied this).

The fact that the Indian drones have managed to reach the highly protected garrison city of Rawalpindi, Lahore and Karachi has come as a surprise for many in Pakistan.

Probably, using the drones may be less expensive than using exorbitantly priced state-of-the-art fighter jets. If the drone warfare continues, then it’s likely to cause further disruptions and anger on both sides.

World nations have urged calm. The initial thinking was that after India launched missile attacks and with Pakistan claiming to have shot down several Indian jets (a claim Delhi has not confirmed), both sides could claim “victory” and de-escalate.

Image source,Getty Images

But there’s a danger that any protracted tit-for-tat attacks could lead them to a far more damaging prospect.

During past conflicts, it was the US and a few other global powers which put pressure on the two capitals to bring the situation under control and de-escalate.

Now passions are running high, and the nationalist rhetoric has reached a crescendo on both sides and they are closer to war than in recent decades.

Unless Washington gets more involved, Islamabad and Delhi may continue with their accusations and counter-accusations.

Gulf states like Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which have close ties to both the countries, can step up their mediation efforts.

While the Trump administration’s priorities are more about tariffs, China and Ukraine-Russia, it may require a concerted attempt by the international community to lower tension between the two nuclear-armed south Asian rivals.

 

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Sufreen Akhtar, a resident of Poonch in Indian-administered Kashmir, told the BBC a shell landed just outside her home.

Another local, Sobiya, says she ran with her one-and-a-half-month-old baby in her arms.

Both of them are now among the dozens of people taking shelter in Surankote, a town a little further from the Line of Control, the de facto border between India and Pakistan. Many others have left Poonch after cross-border shelling intensified on Wednesday

Image source,Getty Images

The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has said in a statement that a cricket match set to be held tonight at the Rawalpindi cricket stadium has been rescheduled.

It said the PCB "in consultation with all the stakeholders has decided to reschedule tonight’s HBL PSL [Pakistan Super League] X match between Peshawar Zalmi and Karachi Kings".

It added that a revised date would be announced in due course.

The statement did not mention a reason for the change in schedule.

Earlier in the day, there were several media reports about Indian drone strikes damaging parts of the Rawalpindi cricket stadium. The Pakistan government has not officially confirmed this.

But Pakistan's army has said that an Indian drone had fallen in a street close to the stadium.

The government of Pakistan's Punjab province has ordered all schools to remain shut on 9 and 10 May, according to an official notification.

The release adds that examinations such as O-level and A-level, being held by international organisations, will continue as scheduled.

Pakistan's airport regulator has said all flight operations from Karachi airport will remain suspended until midnight due to "operational reasons".

Earlier, Pakistan Airports Authority (PAA) had announced suspension of flights until 18:00 local time.

Mohammad Sikandar, a stranded passenger, told the Associated Press that he was supposed to travel to the UAE, but learnt on arrival at the airport that his flight had been cancelled.

"The authorities said they will contact me after five-to-six days if flights are restored," he said.

Here are a few things Mr Misri did not address:

• Pakistani Information Minister Attaullah Tarar earlier claimed that Pakistani forced had killed 50 Indian soldiers. Mr Misri wasn't asked this question and he didn't talk about this.
• He was asked about Pakistan's claims that it shot down five Indian jets - but he didn't answer the question directly. He said official information on this topic will be shared at the right time.
• Some Indian media reports have claimed that 100 militants were killed in yesterday's air strikes in Pakistan, but he didn't address these claims. He added that only 36 hours had passed since the air strikes and asked the media to wait for more details.
• India has claimed that it has "neutralised" an air defence system in Lahore in Pakistan. When asked if there were other such systems that were targeted by India, he said he wouldn't go into operational details. (Pakistan has, meanwhile, denied that its air defence system in Lahore was hit.)

Mr Misri accused Pakistan of targeting the Sikh community in Poonch in Indian-administered Kashmir.

He added that three people from the community died when a gurdwara in the district was hit by shelling from Pakistan.

Pakistan is yet to comment on this specific claim.

Here's more from Indian Foreign Secretary Mr Misri:

• All our air strikes were against "carefully selected terror targets"
• Targets chosen were locations connected to "incidents of cross-border terror in India and terrorist infrastructure"
• Pakistan has been "using religious sites as a cover to train terrorists"

As we reported earlier, Pakistan has denied any links to the 22 April tourist attack and that it had any terrorist infrastructure on its soil.

Mr Misri has once again repeated India's position that it holds the Resistance Front (TRF) responsible for the Pahalgam attack.

He said the TRF was a front for Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba militant group, which is designated as terrorist by United Nations.

Pakistan has denied that it allowed any group to use its soil to launch attacks against India.

Mr Misri says Pakistan's claim that the air strikes damaged the Neelam-Jhelum dam is a "blatant lie" and that India has only struck at what he described as "terrorist infrastructure".

Col Qureshi and Wing Commander Singh have reiterated the points that India made in a statement earlier today.

And now Foreign Secretary Mr Misri is speaking - he begins by saying he wants to address the disinformation around the ongoing situation.

He says he would like to remind everyone that India is not looking to escalate matters, but that the deadly attack of 22 April is the "original escalation".

And yesterday's air strike, he added, was a response to that escalation.

"We are not escalating matters, we are responding to the original escalation," he said.

India is now holding a press briefing. Like yesterday, the speakers are Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri, Col Sofiya Qureshi and Wing Commander Vyomika Singh.

We'll bring you updates from there shortly.

Operation Sindoor is the codename given by India to the air strikes it conducted against Pakistan on the intervening night of Tuesday into Wednesday.

Delhi said it struck nine sites in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir in response to last month's deadly Pahalgam attack on Indian tourists and added that they were "terrorist infrastructure" sites in Pakistan. Islamabad said only six sites were hit and rejected Delhi's allegation that it harbours militants. It also vowed to retaliate.

In India, the choice of the name Operation Sindoor has been widely welcomed by citizens and political parties. It is being seen as a symbolic tribute to the women widowed in the Pahalgam attack in which 26 men were killed.

In Hindu tradition, sindoor, or vermilion powder, is worn by married women in their hair parting or on their foreheads. It is typically removed when a woman becomes a widow, making it a symbol of loss.

A government-released image of the operation's name shows one of the Os in sindoor replaced by a small bowl with some red powder in it.

"It evokes the image, seared into our national consciousness, of the newly-widowed bride, kneeling and weeping by the side of her assassinated husband of six days in Pahalgam - the entire reason why Operation #Sindoor was necessary," Congress MP Shashi Tharoor wrote on X.

Markets in India and Pakistan have closed in the red amid escalating tensions between the two neighbours.

In Mumbai, India's benchmark stock market indices - the Sensex and Nifty - fell around half a percent in trade.

In Pakistan, trading at the Karachi Stock Exchange was halted during the day as stocks plunged sharply - its benchmark index the KSE100 lost more than 6% in trade.

There was palpable nervousness in the currency market as well with the Indian rupee slipping more than a percent against the US dollar, the most in more than three years.

Investors have turned edgy as both countries have accused each other of drone strikes, a day after Indian missiles struck Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

Image source,Reuters