Pakistan will respond to any attack by India with “full force”, the army’s spokesman said on Friday, amid heightened tensions between the two nuclear-armed neighbours over Kashmir, Reuters reported.

Major General Asif Ghafoor was speaking a week after a Pakistani-based militant group claimed responsibility for a suicide car bomb attack that killed 40 Indian paramilitary policemen the Himalayan region disputed between India and Pakistan.

“We have no intention to initiate war, but we will respond with full force to full spectrum threat that would surprise you,” Ghafoor told reporters in the garrison city of Rawalpindi. “Don’t mess with Pakistan.”