The two militant groups India said it targeted in its Wednesday strikes on Pakistan are declared as terror groups by many countries and have been accused of launching several massive and deadly attacks on neighboring India. They are Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), two extremist groups based in Pakistan.

India said it launched the strikes in response to a massacre of tourists in India-administered Kashmir that it blamed on Pakistan. Pakistan has denied any involvement and said it has long battled terror groups.

Here’s what to know about the two Islamist groups:

Jaish-e-Mohammed, which translates to the Army of the Prophet Mohammed, is a Pakistan-based extremist group that operates across Kashmir, and seeks to unite the Indian-administered area of the disputed state with Pakistan. The US and the UN Security Council listed JeM as a terrorist organization in 2001. JeM is “based in Peshawar and Muzaffarabad, Pakistan,” the UN Security Council noted. Muzaffarabad was one of the locations hit by India’s strikes.

Its leader, Masood Azhar, founded the group after he was released from prison in India in 1999 in exchange for 155 hostages held on an Indian Airlines flight that had been hijacked to Kandahar, Afghanistan, according to the United Nations Security Council.

He formed JeM with support from Osama bin Laden, the Taliban, and several other extremist organizations.

Lashkar-e-Tayyiba, which translates to Army of the Pure, is also a Pakistan-based organization with the same goal of uniting Indian-administered Kashmir with Pakistan.

The UN Security Council says it is linked to Al-Qaeda and “conducted numerous terrorist operations against military and civilian targets since 1993, including the November 2008 attacks in Mumbai, India, which killed approximately 164 persons and injured hundreds more.”

Lashkar’s leader Hafiz Saeed has been based in Pakistan for years and been in and out of Pakistani custody.

Police in Lahore said two drones were shot down over the Pakistani city on Thursday, a police official who asked for anonymity told CNN, a day after India launched deadly strikes on its neighbor.

The source did not say what kind of drones they were, nor where they had come from. Officials were “examining the details about these machines” and looking into where they came from and who they belonged to, the source said.

Lahore is roughly 13 miles from the Indian border and is home to around 13 million people.

The drones came within range of a jamming system — which interferes with the signal drones use to communicate with their operators, sometimes causing them to fall — the source said.

CNN has not independently verified the claims.

Pakistan’s Airport Authority announced on Thursday that Lahore’s airport would remain non-operational until at least 12 p.m. local time, without giving a reason.

The Indian embassy in Beijing has pushed back on reports that Pakistan shot down Indian Air Force fighter jets – seemingly the first response by Indian officials to Islamabad’s claims.

Responding on X to an article by Chinese state-run tabloid the Global Times, the Indian embassy wrote: “We would recommend you verify your facts and cross-examine your sources before pushing out this kind of disinformation.”

The embassy account also highlighted what it said were misleading photos circulating online that purportedly showed the crashed jets – claiming they were old photos from unrelated incidents in 2021 and 2024.

It’s unclear whether the embassy is denying Pakistan’s claims altogether.

The embassy’s statement is in stark contrast to the silence from the rest of India’s government and military on the matter.

For context: On Wednesday, Pakistan said it shot down five Indian jets, including three French-made Rafale fighters. A high-ranking French intelligence official later told CNN that Pakistan had downed one Rafale, and that French authorities were looking into whether more than one was brought down.

CNN cannot independently verify these claims.

China’s position: India and China have long had fraught relations, with several clashes over the years regarding their contested border. But China has recently been trying to improve relations with India as part of a broader diplomatic push to shore up ties with neighbors and trade partners alike to counter pressure from the Trump administration.

Pakistan, however, is one of China’s closest partners and main arms supplier, with Chinese arms making up 81% of Pakistan’s weapons imports in the past five years, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.. On Wednesday, China urged both sides to de-escalate, saying it “expressed regret over India’s military action against Pakistan.”

A day after India launched airstrikes on what it claimed were “terrorist” sites inside Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir, the fog of war still hangs over much of the battle.

Pakistan’s leaders are touting a great victory by the country’s air force, saying five Indian fighter jets were shot down during an hour-long battle fought at ranges over 160 kilometers (100 miles).

India’s leaders are saying little in response to those Pakistani claims, though they say their attacks successfully hit multiple intended “terrorist” targets and showed what they said was video evidence of many of those strikes.

India has not acknowledged any aircraft losses, and the Pakistanis have yet to show any evidence proving they downed fighter jets. But a French Defense Ministry source said at least one of India’s newest and most-advanced warplanes – a French-made Rafale fighter jet – was lost in the battle.

Military analysts are cautious, noting Pakistan’s claims have not been confirmed. But India is also not refuting them.

A local resident and government official told CNN that an unidentified fighter aircraft had crashed on a school building in Indian-administered Kashmir, and photos published by AFP news agency showed aircraft wreckage lying in a field. But it was not immediately clear from the pictures of the wreckage who the aircraft belonged to and what brought it down.

CNN cannot independently verify the claim.

Some other claims of aircraft wreckage on the ground across the battlefield circulating on social media have been debunked as from old encounters, or not even from the region.

Pakistan’s latest claims certainly come with a bit of hyperbole.

A Pakistani source told CNN’s Nic Robertson dozens of fighter jets engaged in a “dogfight,” the likes of which have not been seen in the jet age.

Pakistan’s defense minister, gave a similar account, telling CNN: “These planes were downed in a dogfight. Missiles were fired by our planes, and they were shot down. Very simple.”

The term “dogfight” evokes “Top Gun” movie theatrics of fighters in close contact, swerving, diving and climbing to get out of missile lock from their adversaries.

The fight the Pakistan sources describe is far from that and more a long-range missile battle.

Modern jets are equipped with standoff missiles that can hit both ground and air targets from some 100 miles (160 kilometers) away in many cases, without ever having any visual contact with those targets.

Additionally, both Pakistan and India are equipped with sophisticated long-range surface-to-air missiles that could be fired well into the other’s territory to thwart any oncoming attack.

Pakistan’s claims of a stout air defense system defeating India will be somewhat undermined if the videos India showed at a briefing on Wednesday are authentic.

What’s likely is that pieces of the claims of both sides are true – India lost aircraft and Pakistan saw it defenses breached.

A total of 21 airports across northern and northwestern India will remain closed until Saturday, according to a senior police official.

“Until the situation is under control, we will be following the decisions made by the central government,” Sirivennela told ANI.

Multiple Indian and international carriers issued travel advisories on Wednesday regarding cancellations to and from destinations in northern India, after New Delhi launched strikes on Pakistan and Pakistani-administered Kashmir on Wednesday morning.

Other airlines said they were re-routing or canceling flights to and from Europe due to the escalation between India and Pakistan, with more than two dozen international flights diverted to avoid Pakistan airspace, according to FlightRadar24 data.

Late on Wednesday night (Thursday morning local time), Reuters reported that Pakistan had reopened its airspace and that its airports were fully functional.

India and Pakistan fired shells at each other over their de facto border in the disputed Kashmir region on Wednesday night, according to a statement from the Indian defense spokesperson in Indian-administered Kashmir.

The Pakistani army had fired “small arms and artillery guns” across the Line of Control that divides Kashmir, to which the Indian army “responded proportionately,” said Lt. Col. Suneel Bartwal, India’s defense spokesperson in Jammu.

The two countries’ militaries have been exchanging gunfire across the Line of Control nearly every day since the massacre in April at the heart of this escalation. Gunmen stormed a scenic spot in Indian-administered Kashmir and killed 26 civilians, mostly Indian tourists.

Earlier on Wednesday, an Indian defense source told CNN that overnight shelling by the Pakistani military across the Line of Control had killed 12 civilians and injured 57.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has vowed to respond to India’s strikes in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir that were carried out in the early hours of Wednesday local time.

What that response entails may well decide whether the two countries are able to find an off-ramp or become locked into an escalating confrontation.

One option for Pakistan is to claim victory, pointing to the jets it claims to have downed. This option depends on the truth of Pakistan’s claims that it has downed five Indian Air Force planes, including three French-made Rafale fighter jets.

A second option is to carry out strikes of its own. Pakistan might decide it wants to “respond in kind” because some of India’s strikes hit the densely populated province of Punjab in Pakistan, said Tanvi Madan, a senior fellow in the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Institution.

Or Pakistani Army Chief Syed Asim Munir, who is reputed to be “more assertive” than his predecessor Qamar Javed Bajwa was in 2019 when India and Pakistan last clashed, may decide he wants to “up the ante,” said Madan.

However, given India’s messaging has been that it will retaliate if Pakistan’s next move goes too far, Islamabad could decide to keep any response “below a certain threshold,” Madan said.

Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khawaja Asif has said Islamabad will only hit military targets in India, not civilian.

The latest statements from Pakistan suggested it is thinking of a measured response, Madan said, adding however, that no possibilities can be ruled out.

Pakistan has reopened its airspace after closing it following India’s missile strikes in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir, Reuters reported.

The country’s airports are now “fully functional,” according to Reuters, citing Pakistan authorities.

On Thursday morning, flight tracker website FlightRadar24 showed some passenger planes flying over Pakistan again – though most flights are still steering clear of the Pakistan-India border.

Some context: Pakistan closed airspace around Lahore and the coastal city of Karachi on Wednesday morning after India launched a series of early morning strikes on locations in the country’s north. There were major flight disruptions, with India also closing some of its airports near the border region and multiple international airlines avoiding flying over Pakistan.

India launched strikes on what it said were “terrorist” targets in both Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir yesterday in response to a deadly militant attack on mainly Indian tourists last month.

Pakistan has vowed to respond: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif tasked his country’s military to enact “self-defense” with “corresponding actions.”

Questions now turn to what Pakistan’s response will be. How Islamabad chooses to act may well decide whether the two countries are able to find an off-ramp or become locked into an escalating confrontation.

Here’s what else to know: