India strikes Pakistan, escalating tensions over terrorist attack in Kashmir

India launched missile strikes early Wednesday on neighboring Pakistan, escalating tensions between the two nuclear powers two weeks after a deadly terrorist attack in Indian-administered Kashmir.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — India launched missiles at neighbor and rival Pakistan on Wednesday, dramatically escalating tensions between the nuclear powers two weeks after a terrorist attack in Indian-administered Kashmir killed 26 people.

Calling them an “act of war,” Pakistan said the strikes, which according to India hit nine locations across the Pakistani province of Punjab and in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, killed 26 people and injured 46 others. Among the dead were six people killed at two mosques and two teenagers who were killed elsewhere, Pakistani officials said.

India said the strikes hit only “terror camps” and no civilian or military targets. It said it had exercised “considerable restraint” in its target selection.

A soldier at the site of an Indian missile attack near Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, on Tuesday.M.D. Mughal / AP“Our actions have been focused, measured and non-escalatory in nature,” the Indian defense ministry said in a statement.

Several buildings were on fire after the strikes, which caused power outages in various locations, videos posted on social media and verified by NBC News showed. Some of the injured were being taken to hospital in ambulances, and in another video, a loud hissing sound can be heard before a blast hits a few feet away from a crowd of bicyclists.