Missile strike

The National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) has announced plans to resume its total, indefinite and comprehensive strike from Monday, 12 January 2026, following the Federal Government’s failure to implement agreements reached with the association.

The decision was taken at an Emergency National Executive Council (NEC) meeting held on Friday and was disclosed in a statement issued on Saturday, signed by NARD President, Dr Mohammad Suleiman.

According to the association, the renewed industrial action, tagged “No Implementation, No Going Back”, will begin at 12:00am on January 12, unless the government fulfils outstanding commitments contained in a previously signed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU).

NARD also announced plans to embark on nationwide protests over unresolved welfare issues affecting resident doctors. The demonstrations will commence with centre-based protests across hospitals from January 12 to January 16, followed by regional and national protests.

The association had suspended its earlier indefinite strike on 29 November 2025, after 29 days of industrial action, following the signing of the MoU with the Federal Government.

The agreement committed the government to addressing doctors’ demands within four weeks.

However, NARD said the failure of the Federal Ministry of Health and the government to meet multiple implementation deadlines had made the resumption of the strike inevitable.

As part of preparations, NEC directed presidents of all 91 NARD centres nationwide to convene congress meetings and address the media, with plans to hold 91 press conferences across the country within seven days.

Among the association’s demands are the reinstatement of five resident doctors at the Federal Teaching Hospital, Lokoja; payment of promotion and salary arrears; and the full implementation of the professional allowance table, with arrears captured in the 2026 budget.

Other demands include clarification on entry-level and skipping issues, reintroduction of the specialist allowance, resolution of house officers’ salary delays, issuance of a pay advisory, re-categorisation of resident doctors after Part I examinations, regulation of work hours, and the resumption of the Collective Bargaining Agreement process.

NARD said the one-week notice period before the strike is intended to allow for congress meetings, media engagement and statutory notifications to security agencies and hospital managements.

The association stressed that the strike would only be suspended after the full implementation of its minimum demands.

TEHRAN – Iran said on Tuesday that at least 610 civilians had been killed and more than 4,700 wounded in the Islamic republic since the start of the war with Israel on June 13.

“They are all civilians,” health ministry spokesman Hossein Kermanpour said, announcing the increase from the previously reported toll of more than 400 dead and 3,056 wounded.

“Over the past 12 days, hospitals… have been confronted with extremely harrowing scenes,” he wrote on social media platform X.

A man looks at items found in the rubble of a destroyed home in the northern Arab-Israeli city of Tamra, on June 24, 2025, days after after an Iranian ballistic missile slammed into the neighbourhood. (Photo by AHMAD GHARABLI / AFP)

Those killed in the Israeli strikes included 13 children, the youngest of whom was two months old, the ministry said, as well as five doctors and rescue workers.

The ministry also said seven hospitals and nine ambulances had been damaged in the Israeli attacks.

AFP

ISLAMABAD – No fewer than 26 people have been killed and 46 others injured in Indian attacks on Pakistani targets, while three people were reportedly killed on the Indian side, the Pakistani military said.

India launched missile strikes from the air and surface on several areas of Pakistan and Pakistani-controlled parts of the disputed Kashmir region.

It said it was targeting the hideouts of militant groups behind a late April attack in the Indian-administered part of Kashmir in which at least 26 civilians were killed.

India’s Defence Ministry said in a statement in the early hours of Wednesday that at least nine sites were targeted in Pakistan and Pakistani-controlled Kashmir from “where terrorist attacks against India have been planned.’’

The targets were “terrorist infrastructure,’’ the ministry said.

“Our actions have been focused, measured and non-escalatory in nature.

“No Pakistani military facilities have been targeted,’’ it continued.

Islamabad called India’s actions an unprovoked and blatant act of war and a “flagrant violation of the UN Charter, international law, and established norms of inter-state relations.’’

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said that Pakistan had every right to give a befitting reply to this act of war imposed by India and a befitting reply is being given.

Sharif was on Wednesday meeting his security Cabinet, including the military and intelligence chiefs to discuss the situation that had brough the nuclear-armed rivals to the brink, his office said.

Information Minister Attaullah Tarar meanwhile said Pakistani missiles had shot down five Indian fighter jets.

Pakistani military sources told dpa they it had started targeting military infrastructure on the Indian-controlled side of Kashmir.

India also reported casualties: Local media cited the army as saying that at least three civilians were killed in Pakistani shelling in the Indian-controlled part of Kashmir.

The Pakistani military fired indiscriminately across the line of control, the de facto frontier dividing Kashmir into two parts, media reports quoted the Indian military sources as saying.

The reports cited the Indian Army as saying it would respond to the shelling “in a proportionate manner.’’

Bahawalpur, one of the areas of Pakistan targeted by India, is said to be the town where the militant group Jaish-e-Mohammed (Army of Mohammed).

This was accused by New Delhi of being behind several deadly cross-border attacks, was based.

A small town near the eastern city of Lahore was also hit.

Another anti-India militant group, Lashkar-e-Taiba (Army of the Pure), is allegedly based there.

India’s strikes also targeted the city of Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani-administered Kashmir, and a small town called Kotli in the same region, the military said.

Pakistan on Wednesday reopened its airspace for commercial planes and restored flights operations from all international airports after a brief closure in the wake of Indian missile strikes, an official said.

U.S. Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, spoke to both Pakistani and Indian national security advisers overnight in efforts aimed at de-escalation in the region.

China, a major power in the region and a close political ally of Pakistan, also called for de-escalation, joining calls by several Gulf Arab states and the United Nations.

Tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbours have escalated since April 22, when at least 26 people were killed in a militant attack on a group of tourists in the town of Pahalgam, in Indian-administered Kashmir.

New Delhi pointed the finger at Islamabad, accusing it of supporting the militants. Pakistan denied having any role and offered to hold an independent investigation.

The South Asian nations had fought three wars since their independence in 1947 and pulled back from the brink of a fourth one over contested Kashmir.

A picturesque Himalayan valley divided in parts mostly between the two countries, with China also controlling two smaller parts of it. India and Pakistan both claim Kashmir in its entirety. (dpa/NAN)

LONDON – The UK is ready to support India and Pakistan to de-escalate tensions following an exchange of fire over Kashmir, a Cabinet minister has said.

Officials said at least 19 people have been killed and 38 wounded after India fired missiles across the border into Pakistani-controlled territory in at least six locations overnight.

Pakistani forces were reported to have shelled Indian-controlled Kashmir.

The escalation in the conflict between the two nuclear-armed powers follows last month’s massacre of tourists in the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir.

New Delhi has blamed Pakistan for the attack, which killed 22 people, but Islamabad has denied responsibility.

On Wednesday, Trade Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said his Cabinet colleague David Lammy had reached out to both nations in an effort to avoid further escalation, as U.S. and European figures.

Reynolds told the BBC the situation in Kashmir was “hugely worrying, our message will be that we are a friend, a partner to both countries.

“We stand ready to support both countries.

“Both have a huge interest in regional stability, in dialogue, in de-escalation and anything we can do to support that, we are here and willing to do.”

Meanwhile, the Foreign Office has updated its travel advice for the region, warning against all travel within 10 kilometres of the India-Pakistan border, 10 miles of the Line of Control.

The de facto border divided disputed Kashmir between the two countries and the Balochistan province of Pakistan.

Pakistan had also closed its airspace, with the Foreign Office advising affected Britons to contact their airline for further information.

Scotland’s First Minister John Swinney and Labour MP Stella Creasy said they were deeply concerned by the escalation in violence while former Conservative minister Tariq Ahmad warned the “potential for war tonight is real.”

Pakistani officials said the strikes hit at least two sites previously tied to banned militant groups.

One hit the Subhan Mosque in the city of Bahawalpur in Punjab, killing 13 people including a child, according to Zohaib Ahmed, a doctor at a nearby hospital.

The missiles hit six locations in Pakistan-administered Kashmir and in the country’s eastern Punjab province, said Pakistan’s military spokesperson, Lt Gen Ahmed Sharif.

The Indian army said seven civilians were killed and 30 wounded in Poonch district when Pakistani troops “resorted to arbitrary firing,” including gunfire and artillery shelling, across the Line of Control and their international border.

“It said it was responding in a proportionate manner.”

Shortly after India’s strikes, aircraft fell in two villages in India-controlled Kashmir.

State-run Pakistan Television, quoting security officials, said the country’s air force shot down five Indian jets in retaliation but provided no additional detail.

There was no immediate comment from India about Pakistan’s claim.

Pakistan’s Foreign Affairs Ministry said Indian forces had launched the strikes from inside Indian airspace.

UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said in a statement late on Tuesday that secretary-general Antonio Guterres called for maximum military restraint from both countries.

“The world cannot afford a military confrontation between India and Pakistan,” the statement read. (dpa/NAN)