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
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
Riaz Haq
Jim Sciutto
@jimsciutto
New: A high-ranking French intelligence official told CNN that one Rafale fighter jet operated by the Indian Air Force was downed by Pakistan, in what would mark the first time that one of the sophisticated French-made warplanes has been lost in combat.
Pakistan claimed earlier Wednesday to have shot down five Indian Air Force jets in retaliation for Indian strikes, including three Rafales. Indian officials are yet to respond to the claim.
The French official told CNN that French authorities were looking into whether more than one Rafale jets were shot down by Pakistan overnight.
https://x.com/jimsciutto/status/1920142813498311108
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https://www.eurasiantimes.com/1st-ever-rafale-shootdown-has-india-c...
It is worth noting that earlier, Pakistan had claimed that it had jammed four Indian Rafale fighters flying close to the Line of Control (LoC) on the night of April 29-30, forcing them to retreat and make emergency landings. Pakistan’s Defense Minister Khawaja Asif claimed that Pakistan jammed Indian Rafale fighters using Chengdu J-10C fighters.
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French Intelligence Official Confirms Indian Rafale Jet Fighter Loss in Combat with Pakistan
https://www.cnn.com/world/live-news/india-pakistan-attack-kashmir-t...
A high-ranking French intelligence official told CNN today that one Rafale fighter jet operated by the Indian Air Force was downed by Pakistan, in what would mark the first time that one of the sophisticated French-made warplanes has been lost in combat.
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Did Pakistan really shoot down five Indian fighter jets?
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/05/07/did-pakistan-real...
In the early hours after the attack, images of previous Indian fighter jet crashes were circulated on Pakistani social media as “proof” of a successful counter-strike. One, from a 2021 crash, showed the smoking tail of a MiG-29 jet.
But reports of jet crashes were soon corroborated from the ground. Local government sources told Reuters that three Indian jets had indeed crashed inside Indian-controlled Kashmir.
The reports mirrored a story in The Hindu, but that was swifty deleted by the newspaper under apparent pressure from the Indian government.
“There is no such on-record official confirmation from India,” the Hindu said as it apologised for what it called an error. “We regret that it created confusion among our readers.”
Residents ‘saw wreckage footage’
Early on Wednesday morning, Dar Yasin, a photojournalist with the Associated Press, raced to the outskirts of Srinagar, the main city in Indian-controlled Kashmir.
He managed to slip past Indian authorities to take pictures of what appears to be the mangled wreckage of a downed fighter jet.
“Locals told me they saw a huge ball of fire emerging from the accident site and the wreckage was burning for…hours,” Mr Yasin told AP from the scene. Several locals also took and shared video of the wreckage on social media, before being ushered away from the scene.
Images of a burned aircraft engine appear to be of the M88 engine typically used in Rafale jets, said Andreas Rupprecht, an expert in Chinese military aviation.
Some 370 miles further south, villagers in Akhali Kurd in the province of Punjab were jolted awake early in the morning by a loud explosion. Scrambling out of bed, they also found the wreckage of an aircraft, The Indian Express reported.
May 7
Riaz Haq
A dogfight between Chinese-made Pakistani jets and French-made Indian Rafale fighters will be closely scrutinized by militaries seeking insights that could offe…
Source: Reuters
https://www.reuters.com/world/india/global-militaries-study-india-p...
Pakistani jets shoot down Indian aircraft, US officials say
Fight pits Chinese jets, missiles against European weapons
Global militaries analyzing tactics, kit for future conflicts
Analysts caution that details are still to emerge
May 8 (Reuters) - A dogfight between Chinese-made Pakistani jets and French-made Indian Rafale fighters will be closely scrutinized by militaries seeking insights that could offer an edge in future conflicts.
A Chinese-made Pakistani fighter plane shot down at least two Indian military aircraft on Wednesday, two U.S. officials told Reuters, marking a potential major milestone for Beijing's advanced fighter jet.
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The aerial clash is a rare opportunity for militaries to study the performance of pilots, fighter jets and air-to-air missiles in active combat, and use that knowledge to prepare their own air forces for battle.
Experts said the live use of advanced weapons would be analyzed across the world, including in China and the United States which are both preparing for a potential conflict over Taiwan or in the wider Indo-Pacific region.
One U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters there was high confidence that Pakistan had used the Chinese-made J-10 aircraft to launch air-to-air missiles against Indian fighter jets.
Social media posts focused on the performance of China's PL-15 air-to-air missile against the Meteor, a radar-guided air-to-air missile produced by European group MBDA (AIR.PA), opens new tab, (BAES.L), opens new tab, (LDOF.MI), opens new tab. There has been no official confirmation these weapons were used.
"Air warfare communities in China, the U.S. and a number of European countries will be extremely interested to try and get as much ground truth as they can on tactics, techniques, procedures, what kit was used, what worked and what didn't," said Douglas Barrie, senior fellow for military aerospace at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
"You have arguably China's most capable weapon against the West's most capable weapon, if indeed it was being carried; we don't know that," Barrie said.
The French and Americans would likely be hoping for similar intelligence from India, Barrie said.
"The PL-15 is a big problem. It is something that the U.S. military pays a lot of attention to," a defense industry executive said.
Rafale manufacturer Dassault Aviation (AM.PA), opens new tabdeclined comment and the MBDA consortium (AIR.PA), opens new tab, (BAES.L), opens new tab, (LDOF.MI), opens new tab could not immediately be reached for comment on a French public holiday.
SCANT DETAILS
Western analysts and industry sources said crucial details remained unclear including whether the Meteor was carried and the type and amount of training the pilots had received. Arms firms would also be anxious to separate technical performance from operational factors, analysts said.
"There will be audits of what works and what doesn't work, but I think the other overlay is the proverbial fog of war," said Byron Callan, a Washington-based defense expert and managing partner of Capital Alpha Partners.
U.S. arms companies are getting constant feedback about how their products are working in the war in Ukraine, he said.
"So I absolutely expect the same to be the case with India's European suppliers, and Pakistan and China are probably sharing the same feedback. If the PL-15 is working as advertised or better than expected, the Chinese would like to hear that."
May 8