Rise in Tensions
On the day following the attack, an IAF helicopter carrying journalists to the site of the attack was attacked by the Pakistan Army with a surface-to-air missile. Pakistani officials asserted that two Indian jets had intruded into Pakistani airspace near the Atlantique wreckage site, along the border between the Indian state of Gujarat and Pakistan's Sindh Province, and were then fired upon by Pakistan. International and Indian television journalists traveling in the chopper said the aircraft shook severely and a flash appeared in the air, suggesting a missile had been fired at it. The IAF thus aborted their mission to display Atlantique wreckage on Indian soil.
Following this, and the rising tensions in the area coupled by the fact that the Sir Creek was a disputed territory, both the countries' militaries near the Rann of Kutch and nearby were put on high alert. Pakistan sent a company of soldiers, equipped with both laser guided and infrared homing shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles, to the site near the border. Coming barely weeks after the Kargil Conflict where both nuclear armed countries fought high altitude warfare, this incident was seen with growing concern around the world. The U.S. State Department termed the subcontinent as being in a state of "continued high-stakes tension."
Read more about this topic: Atlantique Incident
Famous quotes containing the words rise and/or tensions:
“To-morrow I will have finished four-score years. I have lived to rise from the most despised and hated woman in all the world of fifty years ago, until now it seems as if I am loved by you all. If this is true, then I am indeed satisfied.”
—Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906)
“The three of them are enveloped
turning now to go crosstown in their
sense of each other, of pleasure,
of weather, of corners,
of leisurely tensions between them
and private silence.”
—Denise Levertov (b. 1923)