The world is waiting with bated breath to see what happens next between India and Pakistan.
After India hit Pakistan and Pakistani Kashmir with missile strikes on Wednesday, Pakistan vowed to retaliate, saying it shot down five Indian aircraft.
It has already been the worst clash in more than two decades between the nuclear-armed neighbours.
India told more than a dozen foreign envoys in New Delhi that "if Pakistan responds, India will respond", fuelling fears of a larger military conflict in one of the world's most dangerous — and most populated — nuclear flashpoint regions.
Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said in a televised address to the nation overnight on state broadcaster PTV that India "will now have to pay the price".
"Perhaps they thought that we would retreat, but they forgot that … this is a nation of brave people.
"We make this pledge, that we will avenge each drop of the blood of these martyrs," he said.
However, there are signs that the conflict may have reached a plateau.
Pakistan's deputy prime minister and foreign minister, Ishaq Dar, told TRT World that security advisors from both countries had been in discussions since the air strikes.
"Yes, there has been contact between the two," he said.
Pakistan's Defence Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif told the New York Times that Pakistan reserved the right to strike if India mounted further attacks but was ready to de-escalate.
He said his country had already retaliated by shooting down the aircraft and would refrain from further action if India did the same.
"Restraint is still being applied," Mr Asif said. "But if the same situation arises tonight, the situation could flare up very easily."
He said he did not "foresee any risk, at the moment" of the conflict escalating to nuclear war.
Mr Asif also said Pakistan would welcome United States efforts to defuse the crisis.
US President Donald Trump told reporters at the White House he wanted the conflict to "stop now", saying, "If I can do anything to help, I will".
"It's so terrible," he said.
"My position is, I get along with both. I know both very well, and I want to see them work it out. I want to see them stop, and hopefully, they can stop now.
"If I can do anything to help, I will be there," he added.
Griffith University international relations professor Ian Hall said it was unclear what Pakistan was going to do next.
"We are hearing mixed messages from Islamabad, with suggestions that they may take further action, and others that they consider this episode closed," Professor Hall said.
"And this might be intentional, designed to keep India on its toes and uncertain about what happens next.
"That said, I do think if the NSAs [national security advisers] spoke with each other, that's a good sign that this exchange might be over.
"Of course, there is always a risk on a heavily militarised border, with troops on edge, that something else could happen and things might slip out of control."
'An inferno in the region'
India said it struck nine "terrorist infrastructure" sites, some of them linked to an attack by Islamist militants that killed 25 Hindu tourists and one local in Indian Kashmir last month.
At least 31 of Pakistan's civilians had been killed and 46 wounded, a Pakistan military spokesperson said, adding that India "had ignited an inferno in the region". This included deaths from the strikes and border shelling.
The Indian strikes included Punjab, Pakistan's most populous province, for the first time since the last full-scale war between the old enemies more than half a century ago.
"The targets we had set were destroyed with exactness according to a well-planned strategy," India's Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said. "We have shown sensitivity by ensuring that no civilian population was affected in the slightest."
Islamabad said none of the six locations targeted in Pakistan were militant camps.
Fifty-seven commercial aircraft were in the air over Pakistan when India attacked, endangering thousands of lives, the spokesperson said, adding they included airlines of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, Thailand, South Korea and China.
In Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani Kashmir, the Indian strike badly damaged a mosque-seminary in the heart of the city. Five missiles killed three people in the two-storey structure, which also had residential quarters, locals said.
Reuters journalists saw the roof and walls of the concrete building crumble under the impact of the strikes and household items scattered on the first floor.
An Indian source said the mosque was actually a "terrorist camp", which Pakistan denies. Pakistan has said all targets were civilians.
Hindu-majority India and Islamic Pakistan have fought two of their three wars since independence in 1947 over Muslim-majority Kashmir, which both sides claim in full and control in part.
'Operation Sindoor'
The Pakistan prime minister's office said five Indian fighter jets and drones had been shot down, although this was not confirmed by India. The Indian embassy in Beijing called reports of fighter jets downed by Pakistan "disinformation".
Local government sources in Indian Kashmir told Reuters three fighter jets had crashed in separate areas of the Himalayan region overnight and their pilots had been hospitalised. Indian defence ministry officials did not respond to Reuters requests for comment.
Images circulating on local media showed a large, damaged cylindrical chunk of silver-coloured metal lying in a field at one of the crash sites but the authenticity of the image could not be immediately verified.
Indian forces attacked facilities linked to Islamist militant groups Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Taiba, two Indian military spokespeople told a briefing in New Delhi, in what New Delhi called "Operation Sindoor".
Jaish said 10 relatives of its leader, Masood Azhar — who was released from an Indian jail in 1999 in exchange for 155 hostages from a hijacked Indian Airlines plane — were killed.
India had earlier said two of three suspects in the tourist attack were Pakistani nationals, without detailing any evidence. Pakistan has denied any links to the attack.
Wednesday's strikes used precision weapons to target "terrorist camps" that served as recruitment centres, launch pads and indoctrination centres and housed weapons and training facilities, Indian military spokespeople said.
Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri, the top official in its external affairs ministry, said the strikes were to pre-empt further attacks on India.
Mr Misri briefed 13 foreign envoys in New Delhi on the strikes, an Indian source familiar with the developments said.
"India made it clear that if Pakistan responds, India will respond," the source said.
The neighbours also exchanged intense shelling and heavy gunfire across their de facto border in Kashmir, with 13 civilians killed and 43 wounded on the Indian side and at least six killed on the Pakistani side, officials there said.
ABC/Reuters
