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The military conflict between India and Pakistan expanded in the days after the first airstrikes that followed a deadly terrorist attack last month on the Indian-controlled side of the disputed Kashmir region.
The confrontation was the latest escalation of a decades-long conflict over Kashmir, a scenic valley in the Himalayas that is wedged between the two nations. Kashmiris have rarely had a say in their own fate.
Here is a history of the dispute.
1947
Fraught Beginnings
Contention over Kashmir began nearly as soon as India and Pakistan were formed.
In 1947, Britain divided India, its former colony, into two countries. One was Pakistan, with a Muslim majority. The other, made up mostly of Hindus, kept the name India. But Kashmir’s fate was left undecided.
Within months, both India and Pakistan had laid claim to the territory. A military confrontation ensued. The Hindu ruler of Kashmir, who had at first refused to abdicate his sovereignty, agreed to make the region part of India in exchange for a security guarantee, after militias from Pakistan moved into parts of his territory.
What followed was the first war that India and Pakistan would fight over Kashmir.
Years later, in 1961, the former ruler of Kashmir passed away in Bombay. In an obituary, The New York Times summarized his decision to cede the territory to India in words that would prove true for decades to come. His actions, the article said, had contributed to “a continuing bitter dispute between India and Pakistan.”
1949
A Tenuous Cease-Fire
Militants killed 26 tourists on April 22
Militant attack
on April 22
Militant attack
on April 22
Militants killed 26 tourists on April 22
In January 1949, the first war between India and Pakistan over Kashmir concluded after the United Nations intervened to broker a cease-fire.
Under the terms of the cease-fire, a line was drawn dividing the territory. India would occupy about two-thirds of the area, and Pakistan the other third.
The dividing line was supposed to be temporary, pending a more permanent political settlement.
1965
War Breaks Out Again
Tensions were already high between India and Pakistan in the summer of 1965. There had been a skirmish between their forces along the border earlier in the year, in an area south of Kashmir.
When Pakistan conducted a covert offensive across Kashmir’s cease-fire line in August, the fighting quickly escalated into a full-scale war. The clash was short-lived — only about three weeks long — but bloody.
In January 1966, India and Pakistan signed an agreement to settle future disputes through peaceful means.
But the peace would not last.
1972
An Official Division
After a regional war in 1971 that led to the creation of Bangladesh, Pakistan and India decided to revisit the unsolved issue of Kashmir.
In December 1972, the countries announced that they had resolved the deadlock over Kashmir’s cease-fire line. But little changed besides the designation. The temporary cease-fire line from 1949 became an official “line of control.” Each country retained the section of Kashmir that it had already held for more than 20 years.
While the agreement did little to change the status quo in Kashmir, it came with an aspiration to improve the volatile relationship between India and Pakistan.
Reporting on the deal from New Delhi, a Times correspondent wrote of the two countries: “Official sources here indicated that they were satisfied with the settlement, which they said had been reached ‘in an atmosphere of goodwill and mutual understanding.’”
1987
The Rise of Insurgency
During a period of particular political turmoil — aggravated in 1987 by disputes over local elections that many thought were rigged — some Kashmiris turned to militancy, which Pakistan would eventually stoke and support.
Over the next decade or so, state police in Kashmir recorded tens of thousands of bombings, shootouts, abductions and rocket attacks.
That violence began to moderate around the 2000s, but the years of intense insurgency had further eroded the fragile relationship between Pakistan and India.
1999
Peace Talks Come Up Short
As a new millennium neared, India and Pakistan seemed poised to establish a more permanent peace.
In a gesture of goodwill, Pakistan’s prime minister hosted his Indian counterpart for a weekend of jocular diplomacy in February 1999. No Indian prime minister had visited Pakistan in a decade.
The summit — between the leaders of adversaries that each now had nuclear arms — produced signed documents affirming their mutual commitment to normalizing relations.
“We must bring peace to our people,” Pakistan’s prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, said at a news conference, as Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee of India smiled at his side. “We must bring prosperity to our people. We owe this to ourselves and to future generations.”
Three months later, their countries were at war. Again, Kashmir was the point of discord.
Fighting broke out after infiltrators from Pakistan seized positions within the Indian-administered part of Kashmir. India claimed that the infiltrators were Pakistani soldiers, which Western analysts would also come to believe. Pakistan denied that its forces were involved, insisting that independent freedom fighters were behind the operation.
The war ended when Mr. Sharif called for the infiltrators to withdraw (he maintained all along that they were not Pakistani forces and that Pakistan did not control them). A few months later, Mr. Sharif was deposed in a military coup led by a Pakistani general who, it was later determined, had directed the military incursion that started the war.
2019
India Cracks Down
After the war in 1999, Kashmir remained one of the world’s most militarized zones. Near-constant unrest in the territory brought India and Pakistan to the brink of war several times in the years that followed.
The last major flare-up was in 2019, when a bombing in Kashmir killed at least 40 Indian soldiers. Indian warplanes conducted airstrikes in Pakistan in retaliation, but the conflict de-escalated before becoming an all-out war.
A more lasting move came later that year, when the Indian government stripped Kashmir of a cherished status.
For all of Kashmir’s modern history — since its Hindu ruler acceded to India — the territory had enjoyed a degree of autonomy. Its relative independence was enshrined in India’s Constitution. But in August 2019, India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, rolled back Kashmir’s privileged status.
The crackdown came with a quick succession of draconian measures: Thousands of Indian troops surged into the territory. Internet connections were severed. Phone lines were cut. Mr. Modi’s government began directly administering the territory from New Delhi, and it imprisoned thousands of Kashmiris, including political leaders who had long sided with India in the face of separatist militancy.
The government’s heavy-handed approach stunned observers around the world. But the results, as far as India was concerned, justified the means. A new era of peace seemed to ensue. Acts of terrorism declined. Tourism flourished.
It was an illusion.
2025
A Terrorist Attack
On April 22, militants shot and killed 26 people, mostly tourists from different parts of India, near Pahalgam, Kashmir. Seventeen others were wounded. It was one of the worst terror attacks on Indian civilians in decades.
Almost immediately afterward, Indian officials suggested that Pakistan had been involved. Mr. Modi, the prime minister, vowed severe punishment for the attackers and those giving them safe haven, though he did not explicitly mention Pakistan. Pakistan swiftly denied involvement and said it was “ready to cooperate” with any international inquiry into the terrorist attack.
But India was not placated.
Its retaliatory move came on Wednesday. India said it struck sites in Pakistan and on Pakistan’s side of Kashmir, after it accused Pakistan of being involved in the April attack. Pakistan denied those claims and vowed to retaliate, and witnesses and Indian officials said that at least two Indian jets had crashed.
The clashes on Friday escalated into the two archrivals’ most expansive military conflict in decades. India said that Pakistan had launched attacks using drones and other weapons along its entire western border, while Pakistan rejected those claims. Shelling and gunfire was exchanged on both sides of the disputed border, blacking out towns and killing civilians.
Mujib Mashal, Salman Masood and John Yoon contributed reporting.
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Iran’s hardline parliament speaker and key negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf warned that Tehran would not honor its commitments under a newly signed memorandum with the U.S. if Washington fails to uphold its side of the deal, according to the media arm of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
“If the United States does not honor its commitments, there is no way Iran will honor its own commitments,” Ghalibaf said.
Ghalibaf’s warning was echoed Thursday by Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force commander Esmail Qaani, who threatened the U.S. in remarks translated by MEMRI TV, saying, “Americans should know their place and avoid confronting the Muslims.”
Qaani added that “Trump is trembling” and warned that the U.S. “should fear not only Hormuz and Bab al-Mandeb, but many other locations as well.”
MEET IRAN’S HARDLINE SPEAKER WHO THREATENED TO BURN US FORCES — REPORTEDLY TEHRAN’S POINT MAN FOR TALKS
The warnings came after President Donald Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian Wednesday digitally signed a copy of the memorandum aimed at ending the war and resuming the flow of traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran’s hardline parliament speaker and key negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf warned that Tehran would not honor its commitments under a newly signed memorandum with the U.S. if Washington fails to uphold its side of the deal. (Majid Asgaripour/WANA)
The memorandum gives Iran major economic relief while leaving some of the most difficult nuclear questions for a final agreement to be negotiated throughout the next 60 days. Under the 14-point plan read by a senior U.S. official, Washington agreed to begin lifting its naval blockade, work with regional partners on a $300 billion reconstruction and development plan for Iran and terminate U.S., U.N. and other sanctions on an agreed schedule as part of a final deal.
The memorandum also says all licenses, waivers and permissions needed for related financial transactions would be granted by the United States.
In return, Iran reaffirmed that it “shall not procure or develop nuclear weapons,” and the sides agreed to resolve the fate of Iran’s stockpiled enriched material under a future mechanism, with the minimum method being on-site down-blending under International Atomic Energy Agency supervision.
The agreement defers many of the hardest questions — including how to wind down Iran’s nuclear program — until the 60-day negotiation period for a final deal.
But the Iranian figure at the center of the deal is not a diplomat known for moderation.
Ghalibaf, a former Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander and longtime regime insider, has threatened American forces, vowed Trump would “pay the price” and built his career through loyalty to Iran’s security establishment.
The new warning underscored what experts say is the central risk of the agreement. Washington may be entering a deal with officials who can enforce Iran’s commitments but who have shown little sign of changing the regime’s long-term posture toward the U.S., Israel or the region.
Ghalibaf, 64, is a product of Iran’s security establishment. He rose through the ranks of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps during the Iran-Iraq War, eventually becoming commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps air force.
He later served as Iran’s national police chief, overseeing internal security forces responsible for suppressing protests, including the 1999 student uprising, alongside Qassem Soleimani.
After transitioning into politics, Ghalibaf attempted to run for president multiple times but failed. He instead built his career through loyalty to the system, serving as Tehran’s mayor for more than a decade before becoming speaker of parliament in 2020.
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Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf looks on as parliament members wearing military uniforms chant in support of the IRGC in Tehran, Iran, on Feb. 1, 2026. (Hamed Malekpour/Islamic consultative assembly news agency/WANA/Handout via Reuters)
“Ghalibaf doesn’t have an independent line. His strength is that he is a ‘yes man,’” Beni Sabti, an Iran expert at the Institute for National Security Studies, previously told Fox News Digital. “If he is told to shake hands with special envoy Steve Witkoff, he will do it. If he is told to escalate, he will. It is not about moderation, it is about who gives the orders.”
“His name has also been linked to multiple corruption allegations, including misuse of oil revenues and sanctions evasion networks involving his family. His sons have reportedly been involved and are under sanctions,” Sabti said.
“There have also been public scandals involving family members traveling abroad and making luxury purchases, including widely circulated images of them arriving with numerous high-end Gucci suitcases.”
Behnam Ben Taleblu, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said the image of Ghalibaf at a signing ceremony with a senior U.S. official would be a propaganda victory for the regime.
“There was a time when the Islamic Republic would have been terrified to be seen signing such a thing,” Ben Taleblu told Fox News Digital. “Postwar, this is a sign of the regime’s opportunism, and no one identifies that opportunism better than someone like Ghalibaf, who comes from the IRGC, who is a corrupt politician and is a wheeler and dealer.”
But Taleblu warned that Washington should not confuse Ghalibaf’s opportunism with moderation.
“The mirage is the myth of Iranian military moderation and the myth that, with time, this regime will integrate and put aside all the things that have kept it on the sidelines for so long,” he said. “Transforming Iran via a deal — that is a huge lift.”
Ghalibaf’s wartime statements reflect the hardline posture inside Iran’s leadership. In remarks aired on Iranian television Jan. 12 and translated by MEMRI, he warned that U.S. forces would face catastrophic consequences if they confronted Iran.
“Come, so you can see what catastrophe befalls American bases, ships and forces,” he said, adding that American troops would be “burned by the fire of Iran’s defenders.”
TRUMP ADMINISTRATION UNVEILS SWEEPING TERMS OF PROPOSED IRAN AGREEMENT
A man lights a cigarette with fire from a burning picture of Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf as Israelis rally in support of nationwide protests in Iran in Holon, Israel, on Jan. 14, 2026. (Ammar Awad/Reuters)
More recently, he warned that “the blood of American soldiers is the personal responsibility of Trump” and vowed Iran would “settle accounts with the Americans and Israelis,” adding that “Trump and Netanyahu crossed our red lines and will pay the price.”
John Hannah, a senior fellow at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America and a former national security advisor to Vice President Dick Cheney, said Ghalibaf’s expected role reflects the reality of who holds power inside Iran.
“If you’re going to sign an agreement with Iran, those are the forces in charge and calling the shots, presumably with the approval of the new supreme leader,” Hannah told Fox News Digital. “If the U.S. harbors hope that Iran will ever implement any of their obligations under the MOU, these are the people — odious as they are — capable of making it happen.”
But Hannah said the central question is whether Iran’s leadership sees compliance as useful or whether the agreement is simply a tactical pause.
“The big question is whether they see it in their interest to do so, or are they only buying time, rebuilding their power and preparing for the next round of conflict,” he said.
Ben Taleblu was even more blunt, warning that even a seemingly favorable agreement would not change the nature of the regime.
“Even if you’ve got the perfect deal, with this kind of regime, with this kind of mentality, they will escalate,” he said. “I thought we would have learned by now what the regime did after the JCPOA. It built a vast missile arsenal. It literally built an empire of terror proxies that took Israel years of blood, effort and money to dismantle, backed by American support.
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Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf speaks during a press conference in Tehran, Iran, Nov. 27, 2024. (Majid Asgaripour/WANA via Reuters)
“If we engage in pay-to-play with these guys,” he added, “I’m sorry to sound the alarm bell like this — but something tells me this is bad either way.”
Responding to questions about the threats from Ghalibaf and IRGC Quds Force commander Esmail Qaani, the White House defended Trump’s approach and warned Iran would face consequences if it failed to reach a final deal.
“President Trump has a great track record of good deals for the American people, and the President has been clear about the consequences if Iran fails to make a good, final deal,” White House spokeswoman Olivia Wales told Fox News Digital.
“What the president has achieved on the battlefield and at the negotiating table is nothing short of remarkable and will strengthen American security for many years to come.”
Tehran holds back from talks to cement ceasefire due to ongoing Israeli attacks on southern Lebanon.
Published On 19 Jun 2026
Planned talks in Switzerland between the United States and Iran to discuss the technical terms of their ceasefire deal have been postponed.
The Swiss Foreign Ministry confirmed early on Friday that the talks, which were scheduled to take place in Burgenstock, would now not go ahead.
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Reports suggest that Iran has delayed sending its delegation to discuss the technical issues linked to the ceasefire deal – digitally signed by the two countries on Wednesday – due to Israel’s ongoing military campaign in Lebanon.
Israeli strikes overnight and into Friday have reportedly killed at least 16 people in southern Lebanon, with Iran-linked Hezbollah reporting intense fighting.
Talks postponed
A ceremony followed by talks was expected to be held at the Burgenstock Resort in Stansstad, near Lucerne in central Switzerland.
It is owned by Katara Hospitality, part of Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund, which helped mediate peace in the conflict.
On Friday, in a message to media outlet AFP, the Swiss foreign ministry said: “The planned talks between the US, Iran, Qatar and Pakistan have been postponed”.
“Switzerland remains ready to facilitate these talks. The relevant preparatory work at Burgenstock is continuing,” it added, without providing a new date for the talks.
The announcement followed a report from media outlet Al-Mayadeen that Iran was delaying sending its delegation to Switzerland over Israel’s ongoing military campaign in Lebanon.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that Israel’s military will stay in a “security zone” of southern Lebanon as long as “Israel’s security needs require it.”
Israel and Hezbollah are not parties to the agreement, but Iran has insisted Israel must withdraw from the large swath of southern Lebanon it is occupying.
Logistics have never been ‘simple or predictable’
The US push to quickly begin high-stakes talks with Iran hit a snag just two days after the signing of a 14-point memorandum of understanding with the US that sets out a framework for talks during a 60-day negotiation period.
Vice President JD Vance had been prepared to make an overnight flight to meet with his Iranian counterparts at the mountainside resort in the tiny Swiss village of Obburgen.
His staff and a small pack of journalists had even gathered at Joint Base Andrews outside Washington in anticipation of the trip.
Meanwhile, dozens of White House officials, advance staffers and more media gathered in Switzerland to prepare for Vance’s anticipated arrival.
But then, abruptly on Thursday evening, the trip was called off.
The White House issued a statement explaining Vance – who has been tapped by President Donald Trump to lead the negotiations – and his delegation were prepared for talks, but they were unable to finalise plans and the vice president would remain in Washington.
“The logistics of these negotiations have never been simple or predictable,” the statement noted.
Also on Thursday, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif cancelled his trip to Switzerland, his spokesperson told AFP.
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