Indian Navy Mobilizes as Conflict With Pakistan Escalates

Reports in Indian media suggest that on May 8, the Indian Navy may have launched an attack on Karachi's naval port as part of a broader retaliatory strike operation. The Indian and Pakistani governments have not confirmed the reports, and multiple Pakistani social media accounts deny that an attack occurred.

The possible naval strike follows Indian attacks on nine sites in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir early on May 7 - a response to the terrorist attack in Indian-controlled Kashmir on April 22, in which 26 tourists were killed. The conflict has seen a gradual widening of cross-border aerial attacks by both sides in recent days, with heavy use of drones and stand-off missiles.

Briefing the media on the May 7 attacks across the Line of Control (the de facto boundary dividing Pakistani and Indian controlled Kashmir), Indian spokeswoman Wing Commander Vyomika Singh said that Operation Sindoor had been focused on hitting infrastructure associated with the Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Taiba organizations, which India believes were responsible for mounting the terrorist attacks.

She said that India had designed Operation Sindoor to be ‘focused, measured and non-escalatory in nature. No Pakistani military facilities have been targeted’. The attacks were also designed to deter further terrorist attacks, which India believes were imminent.

Following the initial Indian attacks, which were launched with stand-off weapons from aircraft that did not cross into Pakistani airspace, there were heavy small arms and artillery exchanges across the Line of Control between Indian and Pakistani-controlled areas of Kashmir. These clashes had killed an additional 19 Indian civilians by the close of May 7.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif vowed decisive retaliation. Pakistani sources reported that in the attacks over the land border, five Indian aircraft had been shot down and an Indian brigade headquarters shelled; eight civilians had been killed in the Indian attacks. The Pakistani reporting gave no indication that clashes had spread from the Kashmir area, but described an attack on May 6 in central Pakistan by the Baloch Liberation Army that killed seven soldiers as being carried out by ‘Indian proxies’.

At sea, Indian P-8I Neptune aircraft from Indian Naval Air Squadron 316 based at Hansa in Goa have in recent days been covering Pakistani naval live firing exercises southwest of Karachi. Early on, the Indian Navy is likely to have deployed a forward submarine screen covering approaches to Karachi, using carrier-launched aircraft from INS Vikrant (R11) and INS Vikramaditya (R33) to restrict Pakistani maritime surveillance efforts.

The main Indian naval bases on the west coast at Mumbai and Karwar are empty of ships, as seen in satellite imagery on May 6. The Pakistani Navy is likely to have deployed from its main bases in Karachi, Omarah and Gwadar, but ships are likely to be keeping sufficiently close to land so as to remain under Pakistani air cover.

Indian officials told network NDTV that the Indian Navy "conducted targeted operations in the Arabian Sea against Pakistan," but without specifying a strike on the naval base in Karachi. NASA's FIRMS satellite fire detection platform shows no recent heat signatures in Karachi's harbor area.