India claims its strikes inside Pakistan territory last week killed over 100 militants

ISLAMABAD (AP) — India’s military strikes into Pakistan-controlled Kashmir and Pakistan earlier this week killed more than 100 militants including prominent leaders, the head of India's military operations claimed Sunday.

Lt. Gen. Rajiv Ghai, the director general of military operations, said India’s armed forces struck nine militant infrastructure and training facilities, including sites of the Lashkar-e-Taiba group that India blames for carrying out major militant strikes in India and the disputed region of Kashmir.

“We achieved total surprise,” Ghai said at a news conference in New Delhi, adding Pakistan’s response was “erratic and rattled.”

The two countries agreed to a truce a day earlier after talks to defuse their most serious military confrontation in decades. The two armies exchanged gunfire, artillery strikes, missiles and drones that killed dozens of people.

As part of the ceasefire, the nuclear-armed neighbors agreed to immediately stop all military action on land, in the air and at sea. On Sunday, Pakistan's military said it did not ask for ceasefire, as claimed by India, but rather it was India that had sought the ceasefire.

At a televised news conference, Lt. Gen. Ahmad Sharif said Pakistan's armed forces targeted a total of 26 Indian military installations in response to India's missile strikes which were launched before dawn Wednesday.

He said the military had vowed it would respond to the Indian aggression, and it has fulfilled its commitment to the nation. Sharif warned that any threat to Pakistan’s sovereignty or territorial integrity would be met with a “comprehensive, retributive, and decisive” response.

He said Pakistan exercised “maximum restraint” during the counterstrike, employing medium-range missiles and other munitions, and that no civilian areas were targeted inside India.

The escalation in violence began last week after a gun massacre of tourists in Indian-controlled Kashmir on April 22. India blamed the attack on Pakistan, which denied any involvement.

Ghai said at least 35 to 40 Pakistani soldiers were killed in clashes along the Line of Control, the de facto border that divides the disputed Kashmir region between India and Pakistan. Five Indian soldiers were also killed, he said.

Pakistan’s Information Minister Attaullah Tarar on Thursday said his country’s armed forces had killed 40 to 50 Indian soldiers along the Line of Control.

Following India’s Wednesday strikes, Pakistan sent drones multiple times in many locations in Kashmir and Indian cities that were neutralized, said Air Marshal A.K. Bharti, the operations head of the Indian air force. He said India responded with “significant and game-changing strikes” Saturday, hitting Pakistan’s air bases.

Bharti refused to comment on Pakistani claims of shooting down five Indian fighter jets, but said “we are in a combat scenario and losses are a part of combat.” He claimed India also “downed (a) few planes” but did not offer any evidence.

The Associated Press could not independently verify all the actions attributed to India or Pakistan.

Saturday's ceasefire was shaken just hours later by overnight fighting in disputed Kashmir, as each side accused each other of repeatedly violating the deal. Drones were also spotted Saturday night over Indian-controlled Kashmir and the western state of Gujarat, according to Indian officials.

People on both sides of the Line of Control reported heavy exchanges of fire between Indian and Pakistani troops. The fighting subsided by Sunday morning.

In the Poonch area of Indian-controlled Kashmir, people said the intense shelling from the past few days had traumatized them.

“Most people ran as shells were being fired,” said college student Sosan Zehra, who returned home Sunday. “It was completely chaotic."

In Pakistan-controlled Kashmir’s Neelum Valley, which is 3 kilometers (2 miles) from the Line of Control, residents said there were exchanges of fire and heavy shelling after the ceasefire began.

“We were happy about the announcement but, once again, the situation feels uncertain,” said Mohammad Zahid.

U.S. President Donald Trump was the first to post about the ceasefire deal, announcing it on his Truth Social platform. Indian and Pakistani officials confirmed the news shortly after.

Pakistan has thanked the U.S., and especially Trump, several times for facilitating the ceasefire.

India has not said anything about Trump or the U.S. since the deal was announced. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi chaired a meeting on Sunday with top government and military officials.

A U.N. spokesperson, Stephane Dujarric, said on Sunday that Secretary General Antonio Guterres welcomed the deal as a positive step toward easing tensions. “He hopes the agreement will contribute to lasting peace and foster an environment conducive to addressing broader, longstanding issues between the two countries,” Dujarric said.

India and Pakistan’s top military officials are scheduled to speak on Monday.

India and Pakistan have fought daily since Wednesday along the rugged and mountainous Line of Control, which is marked by razor wire coils, watchtowers and bunkers that snake across foothills populated by villages, tangled bushes and forests.

They have routinely blamed the other for starting the skirmishes, while insisting they themselves were only retaliating.

Kashmir is split between the two countries and claimed by both in its entirety.

They have fought two of their three wars over the region and their ties have been shaped by conflict, aggressive diplomacy and mutual suspicion, mostly due to their competing claims.

Hussain reported from Srinagar, India. Saaliq reported from New Delhi.

People watch fireworks during an event to show solidarity with the Pakistan Army, a day after the ceasefire between Indian and Pakistan was announced, in Lahore, Pakistan, Sunday, May 11, 2025. (AP Photo/K.M. Chaudary)

An Indian soldier feeds pigeons at a market, day after India and Pakistan agreed to a ceasefire Saturday following U.S.-led talks to end the most serious military confrontation between the nuclear-armed rivals in decades, in Srinagar, in Indian controlled Kashmir, Sunday, May 11, 2025.(AP Photo/Mukhtar Khan)

Police personnel pay tribute to Raj Thapa, a senior bureaucrat who was killed in Pakistani shelling in Rajouri, at his funeral in Jammu, India, Sunday, May 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Channi Anand)

Director General of Military Operations Lt. Gen. Rajiv Ghai speaks during a press conference as a blurred reflection of Vice Admiral AN Pramod is seen on a glass pane, in New Delhi, Sunday, May 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Karma Bhutia)

A relative mourns at the funeral of Raj Thapa, a senior bureaucrat who was killed in Pakistani shelling in Rajouri, in Jammu, India, Sunday, May 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Channi Anand)

People with national flags take part in a demonstration to show their support with Pakistan Army, a day after the ceasefire between Indian and Pakistan was announced, in Peshawar, Pakistan, Sunday, May 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Muhammad Sajjad)

Shopkeepers watch a news channel telecasting ongoing military tension between Pakistan and India, at a shop in Peshawar, Pakistan, Saturday, May 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Muhammad Sajjad)

A Pakistani reads a morning newspaper at a stall, a day after the ceasefire between Indian and Pakistan was announced, in Peshawar, Pakistan, Sunday, May 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Muhammad Sajjad)

Local residents depart a passenger bus upon their arrival at a bus terminal, day after the ceasefire between Indian and Pakistan was announced, in Chakothi, near Line of Control, some 61 kilometres (38 miles) from Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan controlled Kashmir, Sunday, May 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Roshan Mughal)

People from Christian and Muslim communities hold a demonstration to show their support with Pakistan Army, a day after the ceasefire between Indian and Pakistan, in Lahore, Pakistan, Sunday, May 11, 2025. (AP Photo/K.M. Chaduary)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Becky Pepper-Jackson finished third in the discus throw in West Virginia last year though she was in just her first year of high school. Now a 15-year-old sophomore, Pepper-Jackson is aware that her upcoming season could be her last.

West Virginia has banned transgender girls like Pepper-Jackson from competing in girls and women's sports, and is among the more than two dozen states with similar laws. Though the West Virginia law has been blocked by lower courts, the outcome could be different at the conservative-dominated Supreme Court, which has allowed multiple restrictions on transgender people to be enforced in the past year.

The justices are hearing arguments Tuesday in two cases over whether the sports bans violate the Constitution or the landmark federal law known as Title IX that prohibits sex discrimination in education. The second case comes from Idaho, where college student Lindsay Hecox challenged that state's law.

Decisions are expected by early summer.

President Donald Trump's Republican administration has targeted transgender Americans from the first day of his second term, including ousting transgender people from the military and declaring that gender is immutable and determined at birth.

Pepper-Jackson has become the face of the nationwide battle over the participation of transgender girls in athletics that has played out at both the state and federal levels as Republicans have leveraged the issue as a fight for athletic fairness for women and girls.

“I think it’s something that needs to be done,” Pepper-Jackson said in an interview with The Associated Press that was conducted over Zoom. “It’s something I’m here to do because ... this is important to me. I know it’s important to other people. So, like, I’m here for it.”

She sat alongside her mother, Heather Jackson, on a sofa in their home just outside Bridgeport, a rural West Virginia community about 40 miles southwest of Morgantown, to talk about a legal fight that began when she was a middle schooler who finished near the back of the pack in cross-country races.

Pepper-Jackson has grown into a competitive discus and shot put thrower. In addition to the bronze medal in the discus, she finished eighth among shot putters.

She attributes her success to hard work, practicing at school and in her backyard, and lifting weights. Pepper-Jackson has been taking puberty-blocking medication and has publicly identified as a girl since she was in the third grade, though the Supreme Court's decision in June upholding state bans on gender-affirming medical treatment for minors has forced her to go out of state for care.

Her very improvement as an athlete has been cited as a reason she should not be allowed to compete against girls.

“There are immutable physical and biological characteristic differences between men and women that make men bigger, stronger, and faster than women. And if we allow biological males to play sports against biological females, those differences will erode the ability and the places for women in these sports which we have fought so hard for over the last 50 years,” West Virginia's attorney general, JB McCuskey, said in an AP interview. McCuskey said he is not aware of any other transgender athlete in the state who has competed or is trying to compete in girls or women’s sports.

Despite the small numbers of transgender athletes, the issue has taken on outsize importance. The NCAA and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committees banned transgender women from women's sports after Trump signed an executive order aimed at barring their participation.

The public generally is supportive of the limits. An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll conducted in October 2025 found that about 6 in 10 U.S. adults “strongly” or “somewhat” favored requiring transgender children and teenagers to only compete on sports teams that match the sex they were assigned at birth, not the gender they identify with, while about 2 in 10 were “strongly” or “somewhat” opposed and about one-quarter did not have an opinion.

About 2.1 million adults, or 0.8%, and 724,000 people age 13 to 17, or 3.3%, identify as transgender in the U.S., according to the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law.

Those allied with the administration on the issue paint it in broader terms than just sports, pointing to state laws, Trump administration policies and court rulings against transgender people.

"I think there are cultural, political, legal headwinds all supporting this notion that it’s just a lie that a man can be a woman," said John Bursch, a lawyer with the conservative Christian law firm Alliance Defending Freedom that has led the legal campaign against transgender people. “And if we want a society that respects women and girls, then we need to come to terms with that truth. And the sooner that we do that, the better it will be for women everywhere, whether that be in high school sports teams, high school locker rooms and showers, abused women’s shelters, women’s prisons.”

But Heather Jackson offered different terms to describe the effort to keep her daughter off West Virginia's playing fields.

“Hatred. It’s nothing but hatred,” she said. "This community is the community du jour. We have a long history of isolating marginalized parts of the community.”

Pepper-Jackson has seen some of the uglier side of the debate on display, including when a competitor wore a T-shirt at the championship meet that said, “Men Don't Belong in Women's Sports.”

“I wish these people would educate themselves. Just so they would know that I’m just there to have a good time. That’s it. But it just, it hurts sometimes, like, it gets to me sometimes, but I try to brush it off,” she said.

One schoolmate, identified as A.C. in court papers, said Pepper-Jackson has herself used graphic language in sexually bullying her teammates.

Asked whether she said any of what is alleged, Pepper-Jackson said, “I did not. And the school ruled that there was no evidence to prove that it was true.”

The legal fight will turn on whether the Constitution's equal protection clause or the Title IX anti-discrimination law protects transgender people.

The court ruled in 2020 that workplace discrimination against transgender people is sex discrimination, but refused to extend the logic of that decision to the case over health care for transgender minors.

The court has been deluged by dueling legal briefs from Republican- and Democratic-led states, members of Congress, athletes, doctors, scientists and scholars.

The outcome also could influence separate legal efforts seeking to bar transgender athletes in states that have continued to allow them to compete.

If Pepper-Jackson is forced to stop competing, she said she will still be able to lift weights and continue playing trumpet in the school concert and jazz bands.

“It will hurt a lot, and I know it will, but that’s what I’ll have to do,” she said.

Heather Jackson, left, and Becky Pepper-Jackson pose for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Heather Jackson, left, and Becky Pepper-Jackson pose for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Becky Pepper-Jackson poses for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

The Supreme Court stands is Washington, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

FILE - Protestors hold signs during a rally at the state capitol in Charleston, W.Va., on March 9, 2023. (AP Photo/Chris Jackson, file)