South Asia Deep Dive — Global Flashpoints & Daily Intelligence. Live open-source intelligence on the world's active conflicts: Ukraine, Gaza, Iran, Taiwan, the South China Sea and the Americas. Updated twice daily.

A four-day war in May 2025 — India's Operation Sindoor strikes following the Apr 22 Pahalgam attack, met by Pakistani counterstrikes using Chinese weapons in combat for the first time — ended in a ceasefire that has held for over a year. Both sides claim victory; neither has reconciled. A fresh diplomatic spat erupted Aug 20 after US Ambassador to India Sergio Gor, also Trump’s special envoy for South and Central Asia, called Indian-administered Kashmir ‘an important part of India’ during the first standalone US ambassadorial visit to the territory since 2019 — Pakistan summoned the top US diplomat in Islamabad in response. Pakistan's army chief Asim Munir was elevated to field marshal and now postures as a peacemaker even as Islamabad deepens its defense alliance with China, unsettling New Delhi. Analysts describe the state as ceasefire without reconciliation — tense but not currently active. A new friction point emerged Sep 15–16: Indian destroyer INS Kolkata and Pakistani vessel PNS Hunain collided in the north Arabian Sea, with each side blaming the other’s manoeuvring — the first at-sea incident between the two navies since the ceasefire, prompting India to summon Pakistan’s Chargé d’Affaires. A Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration panel ruled unanimously Aug 31–Sep 1 that the Indus Waters Treaty ‘remains fully in force’ and India must observe its hydropower obligations, rejecting India’s grounds for suspension; India’s Ministry of External Affairs called the tribunal ‘illegally constituted’ and said its abeyance of the treaty stays in force until Pakistan ‘credibly and irrevocably’ ends cross-border terrorism support, which Islamabad denies. At the UN General Assembly on Sep 25 PM Shehbaz Sharif said attempts to ‘stop, restrict or divert’ Pakistan’s share of the Indus waters ‘would be treated as an act of war,’ said the arbitration court had vindicated Pakistan and called for a Kashmir plebiscite — Geo News, Pakistan Observer. In a right of reply, Indian First Secretary Petal Gahlot dismissed his ‘hypocritical homilies,’ said Jammu and Kashmir is ‘an integral and inalienable part’ of India and warned that ‘continued terrorism by Pakistan will have consequences’; the reply did not address the Indus waters directly — The Tribune, Onmanorama. On Sep 26 External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar told the Assembly that ‘a serial practitioner of terrorism misrepresented facts’ the day before, that India’s ‘right to defend ourselves against terrorism will be exercised’ and that ‘friendship and goodwill cannot co-exist with terrorism’ — PTI via The Federal, ANI, The Week.