New Delhi, India: India’s military has carried out ‘surgical strikes’ along the de facto border with Pakistan in Kashmir to thwart a series of attacks being planned against major cities, the army said Thursday.

Pakistan’s military however accused India of killing two of its soldiers in ‘unprovoked firing’ along the Line of Control that divides the disputed territory and said its troops had responded.

India said its strikes targeted ‘terrorists’ along the frontier.

‘Some terrorist teams had positioned themselves at launchpads along the Line of Control,’ Lieutenant General Ranbir Singh, the director-general of military operations, said.

‘The Indian army conducted surgical strikes last night at these launchpads. Significant casualties have been caused to these terrorists and those who are trying to support them,’ he told a press conference in New Delhi.

‘The operations aimed at neutralising the terrorists have since ceased.’

Singh said the decision to launch the strikes had been taken after the military determined the launchpads had been set up with ‘an aim to carry out infiltration and terrorist strikes in Jammu and Kashmir and various other metros in our country.’

He did not say whether the strikes had been carried out by the Indian air force or by ground troops.

The strikes come after the Indian government accused Pakistan-based militants of launching a deadly assault on an army base in Kashmir earlier this month that killed 18 soldiers.

India has also been on a diplomatic drive to isolate its arch rival and fellow nuclear power since the attack on the base on 18 September.

On Tuesday it said Prime Minister Narendra Modi would not attend the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) summit in Islamabad in November, in a major snub to its neighbour.