Pakistan, India Ceasefire     05/12 07:09

   

   NEW DELHI (AP) -- Indian and Pakistani authorities said Monday there was no 
firing reported overnight along the heavily militarized region between their 
countries, the first time in recent days the two nations were not shooting at 
each other.

   India and Pakistan reached an understanding to stop all military actions on 
land, in the air and at the sea Saturday in a U.S.-brokered ceasefire to stop 
the escalating hostilities between the two nuclear-armed rivals that threatened 
regional peace.

   "The night remained largely peaceful across Jammu and Kashmir, and other 
areas along the international border," the Indian army said in a statement, 
adding that no incidents had been reported.

   Senior military officials from India and Pakistan are scheduled to speak 
later Monday to assess if ceasefire was holding. There were fears it would not 
hold after they accused each other of violations just hours after it was 
announced.

   Local government officials in Pakistan-administered Kashmir reported no 
incidents of cross-border firing along the Line of Control and said that 
civilians displaced by recent skirmishes between Pakistani and Indian forces 
were returning to their homes.

   Pakistan's military spokesperson, Lt. Gen. Ahmad Sharif, said late Sunday 
that Pakistan remains committed to upholding the ceasefire and will not be the 
first to violate it.

   He also confirmed that senior military officials from both nations would 
speak on by phone on Monday.

   Soon after the ceasefire announcement on Saturday, Pakistan reopened all of 
its airports and restored flight operations. India followed up Monday with 
reopening of all the 32 airports that were shut temporarily across northern and 
western regions due to the flare up in tensions.

   "It's informed that these airports are now available for civil aircraft 
operations with immediate effect," the Airports Authority of India said in a 
statement.

   The militaries of the two countries have been engaged in one of their most 
serious confrontations in decades since last Wednesday, when India struck 
targets inside Pakistan it said were affiliated with militants responsible for 
the massacre of 26 tourists in Indian-controlled Kashmir. The tourists, mostly 
Indian Hindu men, were brutally killed in front of their families in the meadow 
town of Pahalgam last month.

   India accused Pakistan of backing the militants who carried out the 
massacre, a charge Islamabad denied. The incident first led to a spat of 
tit-for-tat diplomatic measures by both the nations, sending their bilateral 
ties to a near historic low.

   The two expelled each other's diplomats, shut their airspace, land borders, 
and suspended a crucial water treaty.

   After Wednesday's strikes in Pakistan, both sides exchanged heavy fires 
along their de facto border in the restive Kashmir region followed by missile 
and drone strikes into each other's territories, mainly targeting military 
installations and airbases. Dozens of civilians were killed on both the sides 
in heavy shelling, the two countries said.

   The Indian military on Sunday for the first time claimed its strikes into 
Pakistan-controlled Kashmir and Pakistan last week killed more than 100 
militants, including prominent leaders.

   Lt. Gen. Rajiv Ghai, the director general of India's military operations, 
who will be talking to his Pakistani counterpart on Monday, said India's armed 
forces struck nine militant infrastructure and training facilities, including 
sites of the Lashkar-e-Taiba group that India blames for carrying out major 
militant strikes in India and the disputed region of Kashmir.

   Ghai said at least 35 to 40 Pakistani soldiers were killed in clashes along 
the Line of Control, the de facto border that divides the disputed Kashmir 
region between India and Pakistan. Five Indian soldiers were also killed, he 
said.

   Pakistan's Information Minister Attaullah Tarar on Thursday said his 
country's armed forces had killed 40 to 50 Indian soldiers along the Line of 
Control. Pakistani military also claimed to have shot down five Indian fighter 
jets and inflected heavy losses on Indian military installations by targeting 
26 locations in India.

   The Associated Press couldn't independently verify the claims made by India 
and Pakistan.

   Air Chief Marshal AK Bharti, the director general India's air operations 
told a news conference on Monday that despite "minor damage (s) incurred, all 
our military bases and air defense systems continue to remain fully 
operational, and ready to undertake any further missions, should the need so 
arise."

   Bharti reiterated that New Delhi's fight was "with terrorists, and not with 
Pakistan military or its civilians."