(CNN) — India launched military strikes on targets in Pakistan, both countries said on Wednesday, with Pakistan claiming it had shot down at least two Indian Air Force planes in response, in a major escalation between the nuclear-armed rivals.

India’s missile strikes early Wednesday morning targeted “terrorist infrastructure” in Pakistan’s densley-populated Punjab province and Pakistan administered-Kashmir, it said, and come more than two weeks after a massacre of tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir that New Delhi blamed on its neighbor.

Pakistani forces had downed at least two planes from India’s air force, a Pakistani military spokesman told CNN. CNN is contacting India’s defense ministry for comment.

The two sides have exchanged shelling and gunfire across their border and a CNN journalist in Pakistan-administered Kashmir heard multiple loud explosions. Witnesses in Indian-administered Kashmir’s biggest city Srinagar told CNN that a blast had rocked the city, its cause currently unknown.

The US State Department said it was “closely monitoring” the flare-up between the neighboring South Asian countries that have fought three wars over Kashmir since their independence from Britain in 1947.

“Our actions have been focused, measured and non-escalatory in nature,” India’s defense ministry said in a statement on its strikes, which it said and were in response to the massacre of 26 civilians at a tourist hotspot in Indian-administered Kashmir last month.

“No Pakistani military facilities have been targeted. India has demonstrated considerable restraint in selection of targets and method of execution,” the statement said.

Pakistan denied that claim, saying the attack largely harmed civilians– killing at least three, including a child, and injuring at least a dozen others.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said the country had the right to respond to what he described as an “act of war,” adding that a “befitting reply is being given.”

Pakistani military sources told CNN five locations were struck at Kotli, Ahmadpur East, Muzaffarabad, Bagh, and Muridke.

Ahmadpur East and Muridke are both in Pakistan’s densley-populated Punjab province and are the deepest India has struck inside Pakistan since the 1971 Indo-Pakistan war.

Wednesday’s attacks are the first time since 2019 that India has conducted strikes inside Pakistan’s territory, when Indian jets targeted multiple locations after it blamed Islamabad for a suicide car bomb attack that killed at least 40 Indian paramilitary personnel in the region.

India’s military said it had hit nine targets.

“Justice is Served,” the Indian Army wrote on X in a short statement. “Jai Hind!” (Victory to India)

Senior India officials have spoken to their counterparts in a number of countries to brief them on the steps taken by New Delhi, a senior Indian government official told CNN.

Among the countries briefed were the United States, United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Russia.

Flashpoint

Kashmir is one of the world’s most dangerous flashpoints and is controlled in part by India and Pakistan but both countries claim it in its entirety.

Relations between India and Pakistan have cratered in recent weeks following a deadly rampage by gunmen who murdered 26 people, the majority Indian tourists, at a scenic spot in Kashmir, in the deadliest attack on Indian civilians in years.

The massacre sparked immediate widespread anger in India and Prime Minister Narendra Modi had been under tremendous public pressure to retaliate with force.

India has long accused Pakistan of harboring militant groups that conduct attacks across the border, a charge Islamabad denies, and had vowed to retaliate against those they deemed responsible.

Major world powers, including the United States, had urged restraint in the weeks after last month’s attack on tourists in the town of Pahalgam, fearful that a military conflict between India and Pakistan over Kashmir could quickly escalate.

The two nuclear-armed rivals have fought three wars over the mountainous territory that is now divided by a de-facto border called the Line of Control (LOC) since their independence from Britain nearly 80 years ago.

India has accused Pakistan of being involved in the Pahalgam attack — a claim Islamabad denies. Pakistan has offered a neutral investigation into the incident.

In the days after the tourist attack, both countries swiftly downgraded ties with each other and have since been engaging in escalating tit-for-tat hostilities.

India ordered its citizens to return from Pakistan, shut a major border crossing and suspended its involvement in a crucial water sharing treaty that has been in force since 1960.

Pakistan suspended trade with India and expelled Indian diplomats. It said that any attempt to stop or divert water belonging to Pakistan would be considered an “act of war.”

New Delhi and Islamabad had also been flexing their military might as tensions simmered along the LOC with small exchanges of fire across the demarcation in recent days. Both sides have also closed their air spaces to each other’s airlines.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

CNN’s Rhea Mogul, Manveena Suri, Azaz Syed and Vedika Sud contributed to this story

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