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Balakot & Kashmir: Fact Checkers Expose Indian Lies
Indian government and media have made a series of false claims about Balakot "militant casualties" and "shooting down Pakistani F16". Both of these claims have been scrutinized and debunked by independent journalists, experts and fact checkers. There is no dispute about the fact that Squadron Leader Hasan Siddiqui of Pakistan Air Force (PAF), flying a Pakistan-made JF-17 fighter, shot down Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman of Indian Air Force (IAF) flying a Russia made MiG 21. Abhinandan was captured by Pakistan and then released to India.
Pakistani F-16:
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PAF's Hasan Siddiqui (above) shot down IAF's Wing Commander Abhi (below) |
Indian government and media claimed that an Indian Air Force pilot shot down a Pakistani F-16 on February 26, 2019 over Kashmir. This claim and the evidence offered were examined by Belling Cat, a fact-check site that successfully investigated the downing of a Malaysian passenger jet over Ukraine. Belling Cat's Veli-Pekka Kivimäkithere concluded that "no compelling evidence offered as of yet that an F-16 would have been shot down, and all signs point to MiG-21 wreckage having been on display thus far".
Abhijit Aiyar Mitra, an Indian aviation expert participating in an India Today TV Show, embarrassed the show host on a live show when asked to identify a wrecked engine as being an F-16 engine. The expert correctly stated that Pakistani F-16s are equipped with Pratt and Whitney engines and what the TV host was calling a Pakistani F-16 engine was made by a different manufacturer.
Both Kivimäki and Mitra concluded that the image offered as evidence of Pakistani F-16 engine was in fact from a MiG 21 wreckage.
Balakot Casualties:
Announcing the Indian air strikes in Pakistan, Indian Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale claimed the strike killed “a very large number of Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorists, trainers, senior commanders, and groups of jihadis who were being trained for Fidayeen action were eliminated.” Another senior government official told reporters that about 300 militants had been killed.
The Indian government claim was soon followed by a video clip purportedly capturing a portion of that air strike on social media. Fact Check site snopes.com analyzed this video and declared the Indian claim "false".
Reuter reporters visited the target area in Balkot in Pakistan and talked to an eyewitness who said, “No one died. Only some pine trees died, they were cut down. A crow also died.” Here's an excerpt from the Reuter's report:
People in the area said Jaish-e Mohammad did have a presence, running not an active training camp but a madrassa, or religious school, less than a kilometer from where the bombs fell. “It is Taleem ul Quran madrassa. The kids from the village study there. There is no training,” said Nooran Shah, another villager.
Indian Warplane Down:
There is no dispute about the fact that Squadron Leader Hasan Siddiqui of Pakistan Air Force (PAF), flying a Pakistan-made JF-17 fighter, shot down Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman of Indian Air Force (IAF) flying a Russia made MiG 21. Abhinandan was captured by Pakistan and then released to India.
Summary:
All of the Indian claims about "JeM militant casualties" and shooting down of Pakistani F-16 have been debunked by independent fact-checkers and foreign media reporting on it. Villagers in Balakot told Reuters that "Only some pine trees died, they were cut down. A crow also died.” Belling Cat's Veli-Pekka Kivimäkithere and Indian analyst Abhijit Mitra have said that the images of the wreckage being offered as proof of downed F-16 are in fact from MiG-21. There is no dispute about the fact that Squadron Leader Hasan Siddiqui of Pakistan Air Force (PAF), flying a Pakistan-made JF-17 fighter, shot down Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman of Indian Air Force (IAF) flying a Russia made MiG 21. Abhinandan was captured by Pakistan and then released to India.
Here's a video clip of Indian aviation expert Abhijit Mitra embarrassing his India Today host:
Riaz Haq
#India, #Pakistan came close to a #nuclear war, claims ex US Sec of State Mike Pompeo. His Indian counterpart Sushma Swaraj called, told him that Pakistan was preparing for a nuclear attack after #Balakot strike in February 2019 & India ready to retaliate
https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/india-pakistan-came-close-to...
Former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has claimed that he was “awakened” to speak to his then Indian counterpart Sushma Swaraj who told him that Pakistan was preparing for a nuclear attack after the Balakot surgical strike in February 2019 and India is preparing its own escalatory response.
In his latest book Never Give an Inch: Fighting for the America I Love that hit the stores on Tuesday, Mr. Pompeo says the incident took place when he was in Hanoi for the U.S.-North Korea Summit on February 27-28 and his team worked overnight with both New Delhi and Islamabad to avert this crisis.
Jan 24, 2023
Riaz Haq
Sushma Swaraj "Wasn't Important Player": 5 Top Quotes From Mike Pompeo Book
https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/mike-pompeos-book-never-give-an-inc...
Mike Pompeo's "Never Give an Inch," his memoir of his time as Donald Trump's top diplomat and earlier CIA chief, was published on Tuesday.
Former US President Donald Trump's top diplomat Mike Pompeo, in his just-published memoir, has claimed that India and Pakistan came close to nuclear war in 2019 and that US intervention prevented escalation.
Here are the top five points Mike Pompeo made his new book:
Mr Pompeo claimed he was awakened some time in 2019 to speak to his then Indian counterpart Sushma Swaraj who told him that Pakistan was preparing for a nuclear attack in the wake of the Balakot surgical strike and India is preparing its own response.
"I do not think the world properly knows just how close the India-Pakistan rivalry came to spilling over into a nuclear conflagration in February 2019. The truth is, I don't know precisely the answer either; I just know it was too close," Mr Pompeo wrote.
The former US official said he spoke to Ms Swaraj who "believed the Pakistanis had begun to prepare their nuclear weapons for a strike. India, he (sic) informed me, was contemplating its own escalation". "I asked him to do nothing and give us a minute to sort things out... No other nation could have done what we did that night to avoid a horrible outcome," he wrote.
Mr Pompeo said Pakistan "probably enabled" the attack on security forces in Pulwama, which triggered the Balakot strike, said he spoke to "the actual leader of Pakistan," then army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa, in an allusion to the weakness of civilian governments.
In comments critical of Sushma Swaraj, Mr Pompeo wrote, "On the Indian side, my original counterpart was not an important player on the Indian foreign policy team. Instead, I worked much more closely with National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, a close and trusted confidante of Prime Minister Narendra Modi".
Jan 25, 2023
Riaz Haq
Pakistanis will never give in to a bully like India.
Pakistan will respond with "Operation Swift Retort" if Modi and his fellow Islamophobes are foolish enough to attack Pakistan again.
Listen to your Indian Professor Ashok Swain who tweeted this today:
Ashok Swain
@ashoswai
Never let a regime fool you in the name of nationalism - If you do it once, you have to keep doing it. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-india-kashmir-pakistan-airstrike...
https://twitter.com/ashoswai/status/1630209788075286528?s=20
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Satellite images show buildings still standing at Indian bombing site
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-india-kashmir-pakistan-airstrike...
Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Project at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, who has 15 years’ experience in analyzing satellite images of weapons sites and systems, confirmed that the high-resolution satellite picture showed the structures in question.
“The high-resolution images don’t show any evidence of bomb damage,” he said. Lewis viewed three other high-resolution Planet Labs pictures of the site taken within hours of the image provided to Reuters.
The Indian government has not publicly disclosed what weapons were used in the strike.
Government sources told Reuters last week that 12 Mirage 2000 jets carrying 1,000 kg (2,200 lbs) bombs carried out the attack. On Tuesday, a defense official said the aircraft used the 2,000-lb Israeli-made SPICE 2000 glide bomb in the strike.
A warhead of that size is meant to destroy hardened targets such as concrete shelters.
Lewis and Dave Schmerler, a senior research associate at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation studies who also analyses satellite images, said weapons that large would have caused obvious damage to the structures visible in the picture.
Feb 27, 2023