J&K terror attack: India seems to be building its case for striking Pakistan

New Delhi: Since the horrific terrorist attack in Kashmir last week, the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, has spoken on the phone with more than a dozen world leaders. Diplomats from 100 missions in India's capital have filed into the Foreign Ministry for briefings, officials said.

But the effort is largely not about rallying help to de-escalate India's dangerous face-off with Pakistan, which it accuses of having "linkages" to the attack. Instead, according to four diplomatic officials aware of the discussions, New Delhi appears to be building a case for military action against its neighbor and archenemy. Modi has promised "a punishment they cannot imagine."

Five days after the terrorist assault, in which gunmen killed 26 civilians, India has not officially identified any group as having carried out the massacre, and it has publicly presented little evidence to support its claim that Pakistan was behind it. The Pakistani government has denied involvement.

In the briefings to diplomats at the Foreign Ministry, Indian officials have described Pakistan's past patterns of support for terrorist groups targeting India, diplomatic officials said. The Indian officials have said their investigation is ongoing, and made brief references to technical intelligence tying the perpetrators of last week's attack to Pakistan, including facial recognition data on perpetrators that they say have ties to Pakistan.

The less-than-slam-dunk presentations so far, analysts and diplomats said, pointed to one of two possibilities: that India needs more time to gather information about the terrorist attack before striking Pakistan, or that -- in a time of particular chaos on the world stage -- it feels little need to justify to anyone the actions it plans to take.

A military confrontation between India and Pakistan, both armed with nuclear weapons, runs the risk of rapid escalation that could be difficult to contain. But India is largely unrestrained by any global pressure to limit its response, and it has become quicker to flex its muscles in recent years as its diplomatic and economic power has grown.

The governments of Iran and Saudi Arabia have spoken to the two sides, and Iran's foreign minister has publicly offered to mediate. The United Nations and the European Union have called for restraint and dialogue. But major powers, including the United States, are distracted by other crises, and analysts say India is interpreting the expressions of support by many countries for its pursuit of justice as a green light for any measures it takes.

Trump administration officials have voiced strong backing of India's fight against terrorism. President Donald Trump has said he is friendly with both India and Pakistan, while noting that they have long been at odds.

But it is unclear how involved Washington will get in the current clash. Three months into his term, Trump has not named an ambassador to India, a sign of where South Asia ranks in his list of priorities.

Even if the United States or other powers did try to insert themselves into the conflict, they may have limited influence. India and Pakistan have fought several wars over Kashmir and New Delhi views the dispute solely as a bilateral issue with Pakistan.

The initial response from Washington has been similar to how the first Trump administration dealt with the last major flare-up over Kashmir, in 2019, said Daniel Markey, a senior fellow at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.

That confrontation was spurred by an attack that killed dozens of Indian security forces. The perpetrators -- fighters from a militant group called Jaish-e-Muhammad -- were clear.

At that time, the Trump White House signaled support for India. The administration increased its diplomatic pressure for restraint only after India had gotten a punch in on Pakistan, with a cross-border airstrike.

The strike's damage was disputed. Afterward, as Pakistan moved to retaliate, it got into a dogfight and shot down an Indian jet. The pilot was taken prisoner.

To make up for that fumbled response, all signs this time indicate a desire by India to do "something spectacular," Markey said. Pakistan has vowed to match and exceed any strike by India.

"The tit-for-tat cycle could move rapidly, and the Indians and Pakistanis have inflated assessments of their own ability to manage escalation," Markey said.

Unlike with the 2019 terrorist attack, the claims of responsibility for last week's slaughter have been murky, with information even on the number of attackers less than concrete. A little-known group calling itself the Resistance Front emerged on social media to say it was behind the massacre, according to Indian news outlets. Indian officials, in private, say the group is a proxy for Lashkar-e-Taiba, a terrorist organization based in Pakistan.

The lack of clarity may help explain why India has pointed largely to Pakistan's past support of terrorism in Kashmir to make its case for a military reprisal now. But that approach, before India has laid out its evidence even in private diplomatic discussions, has raised some eyebrows considering the gravity of the escalation. One diplomat privately wondered: Do you want to go to war with a nuclear-armed neighbor based just on past patterns?

Shiv Shankar Menon, a former national security adviser in India, said Modi had little choice but to take military action after responding with strikes against Pakistan both in 2019 and in 2016, after another terrorist attack in Kashmir.

But Menon said the tit-for-tat between the two adversaries was unlikely to get out of hand.

"I'm not hugely worried," he said, "because they're both quite happy in a state of managed hostility."