'It felt like the sky turned red', says witness to India strike in Pakistan
On Wednesday morning, dozens of people gathered on the perimeter of a sprawling complex in the Pakistani city of Muridke to see the damage for themselves.
Overnight, Indian missiles had pounded buildings at this site, which lies not far from the border with India in Pakistan's Punjab region, and just a short drive from the major city of Lahore.
No one was being allowed into the complex - but even from a distance as BBC reporters peered through the barbed wire fence surrounding it, the damage was unmistakable.
The BBC spoke to people on the ground who witnessed the bombardment first-hand.
"It was the main mosque that got targeted," one man said. "The sky lit up and it felt like the sky turned red."
Another said: "A sudden missile appeared and there was a blast. I immediately got out the house.
"I had only reached the mosque near my house when there were three more consecutive blasts. I heard all three, they were really loud."
When a BBC team arrived in Muridke, security service personnel were closely controlling access to the site.
[BBC Urdu]
From a road surrounded by dense housing, the BBC's team could see a partially collapsed building and rubble spread over a huge area.
Emergency workers were still searching the wreckage for any injured or dead.
This complex houses a hospital, school and mosque, while India said it had hit sites linked to what it calls terror organisations - so why was it targeted? The answer appears to lie in its past.
Until a few years ago, it was originally used by Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), a Pakistan-based militant group which is designated as a terror organisation by the United Nations.
It was later used by Jamaat-ud-Dawa, which observers have described as a front group for LeT.
Both groups have been banned by the Pakistani government, which has since taken over the facilities in Muridke.
[EPA]
But on Tuesday night, this complex was in the crosshairs of an Indian military which has vowed to respond to the killing of tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir last month.
India's government says its strikes in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir targeted what it described as terrorist infrastructure. Pakistan's government has denied any links to the Pahalgam attack.
One man told us the Muridke complex usually houses children from miles around who come to study at the madrasa, though it was largely evacuated a week ago.
Later in the day, camera crews were allowed to access the site and see the damage up close.
The roof of one building had crumpled under the force of an explosion.
Holes had been torn through the walls of another and a large amount of debris was scattered across the ground.
Across this region, people are hoping there is not more debris before long.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Hill
an hour ago
- The Hill
US warns of ‘heightened threat environment' after strikes on Iran
The United States is warning of a 'heightened threat environment' after President Trump ordered strikes on three Iranian nuclear sites on Saturday evening. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a National Terrorism Advisory System (NTAS) bulletin on Sunday, alerting the public to the potential of cyberattacks carried out by those who support Iran or are affiliated with the Iranian government. 'The ongoing Iran conflict is causing a heightened threat environment in the United States. Low-level cyber attacks against US networks by pro-Iranian hacktivists are likely, and cyber actors affiliated with the Iranian government may conduct attacks against US networks,' the bulletin read. The bulletin also noted that the Iranian government, in recent years, has sought to target U.S. government officials it deems responsible for killing the former Iranian military officer, Qasem Soleimani. 'The likelihood of violent extremists in the Homeland independently mobilizing to violence in response to the conflict would likely increase if Iranian leadership issued a religious ruling calling for retaliatory violence against targets in the Homeland,' the bulletin read. The bulletin warned that the ongoing conflict 'could contribute to US-based individuals plotting additional attacks' on U.S. soil that are 'motivated by anti-Semitic or anti-Israel sentiment.' 'It is our duty to keep the nation safe and informed, especially during times of conflict. The ongoing Israel-Iran conflict brings the possibility of increased threat to the homeland in the form of possible cyberattacks, acts of violence, and antisemitic hate crimes,' DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said in a statement to The Hill. Trump announced Saturday evening that U.S. forces bombed three Iranian nuclear sites and said to Iran in a social media post, 'NOW IS THE TIME FOR PEACE!' The bombs targeted three nuclear sites in Natanz, Esfahan and Fordow, located inside a mountain. Six 'bunker buster' bombs were reportedly dropped on Fordow, while more than two dozen Tomahawk missiles were launched at the other two sites. The bombings put the U.S. directly in Iran's crosshairs for retaliation and made it an active participant in the Mideast war, which Israel launched with airstrikes against Iran on June 13.
Miami Herald
3 hours ago
- Miami Herald
Satellite images undermine Trump's claim atomic sites destroyed
President Donald Trump's decision to order U.S. forces to attack three key Iranian nuclear installations may have sabotaged the Islamic Republic's known atomic capabilities, but it's also created a monumental new challenge to work out what's left and where. Trump said heavily fortified sites were "totally obliterated" late Saturday, but independent analysis has yet to verify that claim. Rather than yielding a quick win, the strikes have complicated the task of tracking uranium and ensuring Iran doesn't build a weapon, according to three people who follow the country's nuclear program. International Atomic Energy Agency monitors remain in Iran and were inspecting more than one site a day before Israel started the bombing campaign on June 13. They are still trying to assess the extent of damage, and while military action might be able to destroy Iran's declared facilities, it also provides an incentive for Iran to take its program underground. Trump dispatched B-2 stealth jets laden with Massive Ordnance Penetrators, known as GBU-57 bombs, to attempt to destroy Iran's underground uranium-enrichment sites in Natanz and Fordow. Satellite images taken on Sunday of Fordow and distributed by Maxar Technologies show new craters, possible collapsed tunnel entrances and holes on top of a mountain ridge. They also show that a large support building on the Fordow site, which operators may use to control ventilation for the underground enrichment halls, remained undamaged. There were no radiation releases from the site, the IAEA reported. U.S. Air Force General Dan Caine told a news conference on Sunday that an assessment of "final battle damage will take some time." IAEA inspectors, meanwhile, haven't been able to verify the location of the Persian Gulf country's stockpile of near-bomb-grade uranium for more than a week. Iranian officials acknowledged breaking IAEA seals and moving it to an undisclosed location. Indeed, there's just a slim possibility that the U.S. entering the war will convince Iran to increase IAEA cooperation, said Darya Dolzikova, a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, a London-based think tank. "The more likely scenario is that they convince Iran that cooperation and transparency don't work and that building deeper facilities and ones not declared openly is more sensible to avoid similar targeting in future," she said. The IAEA called on a cessation of hostilities in order to address the situation. Its 35-nation board will convene on Monday in Vienna, Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said. Before the U.S. intervention, images showed Israeli forces alone had met with limited success four days after the bombing began. Damage to the central facility in Natanz, located 300 kilometers (186 miles) south of Tehran, was primarily limited to electricity switch yards and transformers. The U.S. also joined in attacking the Isfahan Nuclear Technology and Research Center, located 450 kilometers south of Tehran. That was after the IAEA re-assessed the level of damage Israel had dealt to facility. Based on satellite images and communications with Iranian counterparts Isfahan appeared "extensively damaged," the agency wrote late on Saturday. The IAEA's central mission is to account for gram-levels of uranium around the world and to ensure it isn't used for nuclear weapons. The latest bombing now complicates tracking Iranian uranium even further, said Tariq Rauf, the former head of the IAEA's nuclear-verification policy. "It will now be very difficult for the IAEA to establish a material balance for the nearly 9,000 kilograms of enriched uranium, especially the nearly 410 kilograms of 60% enriched uranium," he said. Last week, inspectors had already acknowledged they'd lost track of the location of Iran's highly enriched uranium stockpile because Israel's ongoing military assaults are preventing its inspectors from doing their work. That uranium inventory - enough to make 10 nuclear warheads at a clandestine location - was seen at Isfahan by IAEA inspectors. But the material, which could fit in as few as 16 small containers, may have already been spirited off site. "Questions remain as to where Iran may be storing its already enriched stocks," Dozikova said. "These will have almost certainly been moved to hardened and undisclosed locations, out of the way of potential Israeli or U.S. strikes." Far from being just static points on a map, Iran's ambitions to make the fuel needed for nuclear power plants and weapons are embedded in a heavily fortified infrastructure nationwide. Thousands of scientists and engineers work at dozens of sites. Even as military analysts await new satellite images before determining the success of Trump's mission, nuclear safeguards analysts have reached the conclusion that their work is about to become significantly harder. By bombing Iran's sites, Israel and the U.S. haven't just disrupted the IAEA's accountancy of Iran's nuclear stockpile, they've also degraded the tools that monitors will be able to use, said Robert Kelley, who led inspections of Iraq and Libya as an IAEA director. That includes the forensic method used to detect the potential diversion of uranium. "Now that sites have been bombed and all classes of materials have been scattered everywhere the IAEA will never again be able to use environmental sampling," he said. "Particles of every isotopic description have infinite half-lives for forensic purposes and it will be impossible to sort out their origin." _____ Copyright (C) 2025, Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Portions copyrighted by the respective providers.
Los Angeles Times
3 hours ago
- Los Angeles Times
Suicide bomber kills at least 9 in Syrian church near Damascus during Mass
DWEILA, Syria — A suicide bomber in Syria on Sunday detonated his explosives inside a church filled with people, killing at least nine, Syrian state media reported. The explosion in Dweila, on the outskirts of Damascus, took place as people were praying inside the Mar Elias Church. The state-run Syrian Arab News Agency, or SANA, citing the Health Ministry, said that at least 15 others were wounded. The Britain-based war monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says there were 30 casualties, but it did not give exact numbers of dead and wounded. Some local media reports said that children were among the casualties. The attack was the first of its kind in Syria in years and comes as Damascus under its de facto Islamist rule is trying to win the support of minorities. As President Ahmad al-Sharaa struggles to exert authority across the country, there have been concerns about the presence of sleeper cells of extremist groups in the war-torn country. No group immediately claimed responsibility Sunday, but the Syrian Interior Ministry said an extremist from the Islamic State group entered the church and fired at the people there before detonating an explosives vest. Some witness testimonies supported that account. A witness who identified himself as Rawad told the Associated Press he saw the attacker, who was accompanied by two others who fled as he was driving near the church. 'He was shooting at the church. … He then went inside the church and blew himself up,' he said. Syrian Information Minister Hamza Mostafa condemned the bombing, calling it a terrorist attack. 'This cowardly act goes against the civic values that brings us together,' he said in a post on X. 'We will not back down from our commitment to equal citizenship … and we also affirm the state's pledge to exert all its efforts to combat criminal organizations and to protect society from all attacks threatening its safety.' Security forces and first responders rushed to the church. Panicked survivors wailed; one woman fell to her knees and burst into tears. A photo circulated by SANA showed the church's pews covered in debris and blood. Shaheen and Chehayeb write for the Associated Press and reported from Dweila and Beirut, respectively.
