President Donald Trump appeared to have been taken by surprise by news that Pakistan and India were exchanging missile fire as the security situation between the two nuclear-armed historic rivals increasingly deteriorated on Tuesday.
A reporter asked Trump for his reaction during a question-and-answer session in the Oval Office, to which the president responded: “We just heard about it as we were walking through the doors of the Oval… They’ve been fighting for a long time… I just hope it ends very quickly.”
Tensions between India and Pakistan have escalated dramatically, marking the most severe confrontation between the two nuclear-armed neighbors since 2019.
The immediate trigger for the current escalation was a terrorist attack on April 22 in Pahalgam, Indian-administered Kashmir, which resulted in the deaths of 26 Hindu tourists.
India attributed the attack to the Resistance Front (TRF), a group allegedly linked to Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba.
In response, India launched “Operation Sindoor,” a series of missile strikes targeting what it described as terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir.
The operation targeted nine sites, including areas in Bahawalpur, Muridke, and Muzaffarabad, reportedly associated with Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed. India claimed the strikes were precise and aimed solely at militant facilities.
