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The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim
India and Pakistan clashes
00:21:57
In a special extra episode, Yalda talks to Sky News' India reporter and producer Neville Lazurus in Delhi on the roots of the latest hostilities between the two nuclear-armed countries and asks if this has the potential to escalate into a global conflict.
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- [00:09]
Yalda
Hello and welcome to the world. I'm Yalda and I'm currently in London. And Richard won't be joining us again for this particular podcast because he's still on assignment. But given the rising tensions between India and Pakistan and the series of strikes that we saw India launch on Pakistani territory, we felt that we needed to speak to our India correspondent, our India expert, Neville Lazarus, who joins us at the moment to get a sense of what on earth is going on, what the background to all of this is and where this is likely to go. And before I get stuck in and start my conversation with Neville, don't forget to follow us wherever you get your podcast and send us your thoughts on today's developments and the story that we're seeing take place at the moment. The usual place, the world@sky.uk. neville, it's so good to see you. I just want to take you back to the 22nd of April, just a few weeks ago, when a group of tourists who were Indian nationals, mostly one Nepali citizen, were killed by terrorists in Kashmir. Just give us a sense of how that unfolded and what the mood was in India. Because the sense I got was initially India shocked, traumatized, and then they wanted revenge.
- [01:51]
Neville Lazarus
Oh, absolutely. Shock and horror out and anger. There's an uproar out here. So we reached there to the location the next day because obviously it was such a big incident. We've had tourists who were largely left untouched in the many sort of attacks that militants and terrorists have had over the many decades in Kashmir now. And then, yes, a tourist, domestic tourist was killed, but not in this shape and form. So you had these tourists who were in what is called Behelgama Place, which is known as the mini Switzerland. It's. It's absolutely beautiful. Beautiful mountains. Ruiz. And, and you've got this meadow in, in, in this place which is up the sort of hill where families had come to enjoy. Now, this attack which had four gunmen coming and actually killing the men. In some cases, they had gathered the families and just shot the men. And we have eyewitnesses, some of the victims of family members saying that they. This woman who was married to was on a honeym husband was killed and she told the gunman to shoot her as well. And he said, no, if we don't kill you, you go and tell Prime Minister Modi of what we've done. So those sort of voices that came out brought about a lot of anger. In some cases, the religion was being asked of and then the person was shot. So it did become a really, really sort of a volcanic kind of anger that pervaded, you know, parts of the media, social media and people. And you could tell there was a mood change in 26 civilians who were killed. And the mood did go really south at the highest levels. We've had Prime Minister Modi saying in very sort of public statements he's made over the many days in the past, saying that there will be retribution, there will be revenge, and they will hunt down till the end of these earths the terrorists and the backers and everyone will be punished. Terrorism will be punished. And we saw what happened in the culmination of these attacks that took place. But, yeah, India was hurting. It really was angry. And there was a sense that Prime Minister Modi and the present government needed to do something to quell that anger.
- [04:30]
Yalda
As you say, we heard the Prime Minister say that they were going to find the perpetrators, you know, to the ends of the earth. And he said that statement in English, which he doesn't normally do. He was speaking at a rally, speaking in Hindi, and then suddenly he broke out almost like he was speaking to the international community and giving them a warning that this would come, that they would respond and retaliate to this, but help our audiences. Neville, understand why India immediately pointed the finger of blame on Pakistan. Of. We know, and I've done a number of interviews, not just in the last few weeks, but for years with, you know, Pakistani officials who have admitted that they have backed and funded terrorist organizations, that they've given them sanctuary in different parts of Pakistan, they've given them shelter. We know that Osama bin Laden, for example, was found and killed in Pakistan just by a military base in Abbottabad. So there have been reasons why the international community at different points has pointed the finger of blame on Pakistan and said, you're not doing enough to tackle this problem. But immediately after this attack took place, Pakistan, India rather warned Pakistan that they would retaliate and it would be on Pakistani soil.
- [05:53]
Neville Lazarus
That's correct. India has been frustrated for decades now. I mean, if we. If you have a look at the past attacks, the big attacks, whether it was the 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament where Jaishe Mohammed, a terror group, had claimed responsibility. It is based in Pakistan. 14 people were killed in the Indian Parliament. They attacked the Indian Parliament, the sort of democracy of the temple of democracy out here, India really went to war on that. And, you know, it became a really nuclear flashpoint, it was called at that time when the United States had to intervene. Bill Clinton had to intervene and you know, tone down that whole rhetoric at that point of time. This was then followed by the Mumbai terror attacks in 2008. We saw the 10 men from Lashkar e Toiba, which was proof that they were from Pakistan, from this group of Lashkar e Toiba, another terror organization which has been banned across the world by Britain, by America, many western nations, India itself. And we saw the four days of mayhem and chaos that they created in Mumbai. I mean, it played out live on television for four days, 166 people died. India provided dossiers of not only technical sort of know how and the connections made with the handlers and masterminds back in Pakistan. We had the Americans. There was two of the conspirators were arrested in America. One has been extradited to India. In the last month. These dossiers were provided, but nothing really took place. Then again in 2016, an attack on an army base and an army camp in Uri where 18 soldiers lost their lives. And Prime Minister Modi even invited two massive criticism in this country. He invited and he, and he got investigators from Pakistan to go through the crime scene and investigate this. Again, nothing happened. Then the 2019, the big attack on this Indian paramilitary convoy which the suicide bomber rammed his car into it and killed 40 paramilitary soldiers. There was absolute anger and uproar which led to surgical strikes in Balakot, which is Pakistan occupied Kashmir. And then we know of this attack in Pehelgam. So over the years, India has sort of exhausted. It's sort of trying to prove and give evidence to the world, trying to prove and give evidence to Pakistan. So every time we speak to an official in the Ministry of Foreign affairs or Defense or the Home Department, they just are very, very frustrated with the kind of no action being taken across. And that's why we've seen now since 2019. What changed was a direct unilateral attack in Pakistan on terror groups, on launchpads, on terror organizations based out there. And this was followed early this morning again, that's right.
- [09:26]
Yalda
And yet, Neville, when we put it to Pakistani officials about how they fund or back terror organizations or that terror camps still exist in the country or well known areas where madrases or seminaries where they are preaching extremism and training small children to become militants and launch these types of attacks, this has been a source of anger for the region, for India, for Afghanistan, for the United States. And yet Pakistan either denies it or when they do admit it, they say it was part of our history and it's not happening now. We've cleaned up our act. And clearly this is not something that, that India is buying. I spoke to the Information Minister about an hour after the India launched these precision strikes and said they targeted terrorist camps. And he said to me, there are no terrorist camps. We are fighting for freedom and we fighting terrorist organizations. We are the victim of terrorism in this country. I just want to play you a short clip from that. Just to point out, Minister, the Indian armed forces say that altogether nine sites have been targeted, that they haven't hit any Pakistani military facilities. These are terrorist camps that they are hitting.
- [10:55]
Khwaja Asif
Let me make it very clear. There are no terrorist camps in Pakistan. Pakistan is a victim of terrorism. We are fighting the terrorists in our western regions, on our western borders. We are the frontline state against terrorism. We've laid down 90,000 lives in this war against terrorism.
- [11:11]
Yalda
So, Neville, you know what's been quite stark and quite extraordinary for me just in the last few weeks since the terrorist attack in Pahelgam in Kashmir was whether I spoke to Pakistan's Defense Minister, whether I spoke to the former Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto or the Information Minister yesterday. There is a sense that Pakistan wants to acknowledge that, yes, they did once fund terrorist organizations, but they now no longer do and they don't understand why India has launched this attack. And they keep saying, could you, you know, could the Indians just accept our offer that we will be part of the investigation and we'll provide whatever assistance they need? You say that India, you know, has tried this in the past and it just hasn't worked.
- [11:58]
Neville Lazarus
Oh, absolutely. India is frustrated and I don't think so now there will be any kind of olive branch and asking them to come and investigate it out of, I think the Indian officials and the government has passed that now. In fact, your interview with the Defense Minister last week where he acknowledged being, you know, Pakistan helping for decades and called it fighting the dirty war of the West. But that's just an excuse.
- [12:34]
James Matthews
The first 100 days might be over, but President Trump is showing no signs of slowing down. America will soon be greater than ever before. So we're continuing to follow every twist and turn of this remarkable presidency and.
- [12:49]
Yalda
Trying to make sense of what it all means for the US and for the rest of the world.
- [12:54]
James Matthews
So join me, James Matthews, me, Malte Kalma, and me, Mark Stone for Sky News. TRUMP 100. Wherever you get your podcasts.
- [13:13]
Yalda
I just want to play you my interview with Pakistan's Defense Minister, Khwaja Asif. It was an extraordinary admission that Pakistan had backed, funded, given military aid and support to terrorist organizations, use them as proxies for decades. Let's just have a listen to that. You do admit sir, that that Pakistan has had a long history of backing and supporting and training and funding these terrorist organizations.
- [13:43]
Khwaja Asif
Well we have been doing this dirty work for United States for about three decades, you know, and west, including Britain.
- [13:54]
Yalda
So that's your argument that no, that.
- [13:58]
Khwaja Asif
Was a mistake and we suffered for that. And that is why you are saying this to me. If we had not joined the war against Soviet Union and later on the war after 9 11, Pakistan's track record, you know, was not, you know, unimpeachable track record.
- [14:20]
Neville Lazarus
I mean you, when you spoke to the Defence Minister you probably were surprised to hear him talk in that manner acknowledging this very fact. And it's just been like that for decades. And that's why we don't see India in any way trying to, you know, provide any sort of olive branch to Pakistan in this time.
- [14:43]
Yalda
Now Neville, where do you think this is likely to go? Because we're talking about two nuclear rivals now. Pakistan has struggled to win conventional wars and so it has invested in nuclear weapons and terrorism. And these two things do not mix well together. And so this is now a situation that has become incredibly heated. India is a nuclear armed state. Pakistan is a nuclear armed state. Pakistan says it will retaliate and that innocent civilians were killed in this attack. They say that children, women were targeted and killed. That's what the Information Minister was saying to me as well. And he also said that some Indian military aircraft were shot down. We're still verifying all that information. But in terms of your assessment, do you think that this could potentially escalate even further?
- [15:40]
Neville Lazarus
Yes, of course. There's always a big chance of its escalating even further. Now India, what we're hearing from the ministries out here is that we've done what we have to do. The nine strikes that they conducted through those 25 minutes using munitions and sort of bunker busting bombs which they hit terror camps and buildings. Now they said they have done this. They don't mean, I mean if you read the sort of lines from the ministries, these are not escalatory what they have said. They've said it's not military installations and they're not targeting civilians. It's only terror organizations and the launchpads that they have hit. Now the ball is now in the court of Pakistan. How Pakistan retaliates is something India will be waiting and watching very carefully from tonight onwards. The Indian Air Force is conducting sort of war drills in Rajasthan, which is on this side of the international border. Now this was already in place last evening. We were told about these war drills that will go on for at least 48 hours. A number of airports have, have stopped flights, especially the ones which are on the western part of the country in the north in Srinagar, Jammu, Chandigarh, Pathankot, all these places, the airports have, have, have shut down. India is waiting to see if there is any retaliation. We've heard from the Pakistani side that, you know, they have given the military a free hand to choose when and where to hit, but they need to, India would be waiting to see what comes next and that's anyone's guess what can happen. And obviously the international community has been, has been talking about dialing down this whole, the rhetoric, dialing down the tensions. India, the first five countries they reached out to early in the morning after the strikes was the United States, Britain, Russia, uae, Saudi Arabia, the sort of five big players now in the region and gave their assessment, told them what they've done. So now I think India has just played, played its cards, waiting for Pakistan to place theirs now.
- [18:14]
Yalda
Yes, and last night it seemed that India wanted to draw a line in the sand by saying you that this was, these were precision strikes. They didn't hit any military infrastructure, that these were terrorist camps. So really sending a message to the world and Pakistan, we didn't go after your military infrastructure even though we know where everything is. Neville, before I let you go, because I know you've got a busy day of covering this story, I want to ask about the wider picture because as you say, you know, these sorts of things, when they escalate it can lead to miscalculation, you know, which can lead to sort of this entire thing flaring up into an all out war. China and India's relationship has often been turbulent over the years. We saw skirmishes on the border a few years ago. We also know that China, you know, supplies Pakistan with much of its military hardware. And the Pakistanis also have American jets, the F16s that they used in 2019. But Washington is now quite close to Delhi and Beijing is quite close to Islamabad. There is often talk about great power competition, great power rivalry in the region. Is there also concern that this could turn into, you know, a bigger escalation and rivalry between China, who it backs, and the United States and where it supports? Because right now the United States is really trying to toe the line.
- [19:46]
Neville Lazarus
No? That's correct. I mean, China is the big consideration for India. I mean India's had a really rocky patch in the last few years with China. We've had skirmishes across this 2000 mile border in the north with the north and the northeast with China, which most of it is not marked, it's demarcated. So there has been this sort of, we've had issues of soldiers fighting, dying Indian soldiers dying in Galwan in the summer of 2020. But India is very concerned because China has great economic interest in Pakistan, is a big supporter of Pakistan, and India does not want to have a sort of A2, another front opening up either in the north or in the east of the country where the borders are very, very fluid. And there have been skirmishes and there have been fights, fist fights and sort of clashes between the two military, the Chinese and the Indian. So the Chinese issue is of big consideration. And an American support for India to counter China is one of the issues that has always been talked about. Now in every fora, America sees India as a counterweight to China and Asia, the two largest, most populated countries in the world. And therefore China plays a, a significant role. It won't since this, this is still contained, but if it escalates, there is definitely a potential of China intervening in some way or the other which will make things even more complicated.
- [21:35]
Yalda
Well, we hope the situation remains contained and doesn't escalate any further. We're really grateful for your time and Neville, thank you so much for joining us here on the program, giving us your analysis and thoughts. Stay safe and see you soon. And thank you so much to all of our listeners. I'll be back next week. Hopefully nothing else flares up or escalates and we won't have to do another quick podcast for you. And Richard, of course, will be here. I'll be in the Middle east next week and we'll be bringing you our analysis and thoughts from there. For now, thanks so much for listening.
- [22:28]
James Matthews
The first 100 days might be over, but President Trump is showing no signs of slowing down. America will soon be greater than ever before. So we're continuing to follow every twist and turn of this remarkable presidency and.
- [22:43]
Yalda
Trying to make sense of what it all means for the US and for the rest of the world.
- [22:48]
James Matthews
So join me, James Matthews, me, Malte Kalner, and me Markstone for Sky News Trump 100, wherever you get your podcast.