India said on Thursday it had conducted "surgical strikes" on suspected militants preparing to infiltrate from Pakistan-ruled Kashmir, making its first direct military response to an attack on an army base it blames on Pakistan.  The cross-border action inflicted significant casualties, the Indian army's head of operations told reporters in New Delhi.

Pakistan said there had been no such targeted strikes, but that it had repulsed a raid by Indian troops and returned fire across the Line of Control, the de facto frontier that runs through the disputed territory of Kashmir.

The Indian announcement followed through on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's warning that those responsible "would not go unpunished" for a Sept. 18 attack on an Indian army base at Uri, near the frontier, that killed 18 soldiers.

The strikes also raised the possibility of a military escalation between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan that would wreck a 2003 Kashmir ceasefire.

Read more:  Reuters