Indian warplanes dropped bombs inside Pakistan early on Tuesday, both sides said, as military tensions between the nuclear arch rivals escalated dramatically following last week's Kashmir suicide attack.

India said aircraft had destroyed a terrorist training camp where militants were training to carry out an imminent attack, in its first airstrikes against Pakistan since their 1971 war. But the Pakistani military said the aircraft had caused no damage after dropping their payload early when repulsed by defending forces.

India's foreign minister, Vijay Gokhale, said the action had struck a hilltop training camp of the Jaish-e-Mohammad militant group, near Balakot. Describing the strikes as "non-military pre-emptive action", he claimed "a very large number of Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorists, trainers, senior commanders and groups of jihadis who were being trained for fidayeen [suicide] action were eliminated".

The Indian jets crossed the disputed line of control near Muzafarabad in Kashmir, according to Maj Gen Asif Ghafoor, spokesman for Pakistan's armed forces. One local police official who declined to be named told the Telegraph that the strike had taken place at Jabba, near Balakot, inside the Pakistani province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.