US supports India's right to defend itself: Defence Secretary Hegseth to Rajnath Singh

New Delhi: The USA has backed India’s fight against terrorism and supported India’s right to defend itself, the Defence Ministry said here on Thursday after Defence Minister Rajnath Singh spoke with his US counterpart Pete Hegseth.

Hegseth called up Singh and extended condolences for the loss of innocent lives in the Pahalgam terror attack. Rajnath, on his part, told Hegseth that Pakistan was exposed as a rogue state fuelling global terrorism.

“Pakistan has been exposed as a rogue state, fuelling global terrorism and destabilising the region. The world can no longer turn a blind eye to terrorism,” the defence minister told the US official, noting that it would be important for the global community to explicitly and unequivocally condemn and call out such heinous acts of terrorism.”

“The US Secretary of Defence reiterated full support of the US government in India’s fight against terrorism. The US stands in solidarity with India and supports India’s right to defend itself,” the defence ministry said in a statement.

During the conversation, Singh also told the US Secretary of Defence about Pakistan’s history of supporting, training and funding terrorist organisations.

The Rajnath-Hegseth talk happened within hours of US Secretary of State Marco Rubio separately calling External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif as border tension between the two nuclear-powered nations escalates following the Pahalgam carnage in which 26 Indians – 25 tourists and one local resident of Kashmir - were killed by Pakistan-backed terrorists.

In his conversation with Jaishankar, Rubio expressed his sorrow for the lives lost in the "horrific" terror attack and reaffirmed the US' commitment to cooperation with India against terrorism, according to the US State Department.

There has been no let-up in cross-border fire exchanges that continued for the seventh consecutive day as Pakistan Army posts initiated unprovoked small-arms fire across the Line of Control opposite Kupwara, Uri and Akhnoor sectors on the intervening night of April 30-May 1, army sources said. These were responded to proportionately by the Indian Army.

Meanwhile, amidst the ongoing India-Pakistan tension, the Indian Army’s Northern Command gets a new chief as Lt Gen Pratik Sharma, who was part of all the strategic planning post Pahalgam carnage, took over on Thursday as the new General Officer Commanding-in-Chief of the formation.

Commissioned in the Madras regiment in 1987, Lt Gen Sharma served as the commander of 2 Corps, Ambala – one of the two strike corps focusing on the western front. He was also the Director General of Military Operations and Deputy Chief of Army Staff (Strategy) before taking over as the GOC of the Northern Command.

Air Marshal Ashutosh Dixit took over as the new Chief of Integrated Defence Staff (CISC)