THE EXPRESS TRIBUNE
India on Sunday conceded for the first time that there were no casualties in the Balakot strike.
“The air strikes by India were just a warning,” said Union Minister Surinder Singh Ahluwalia in an interview with an Indian TV channel.
“Neither Prime Minister Narendra Modi nor any government spokesperson had given any figure on casualty of air strikes,” said Ahluwalia. “Rather, it was the Indian media and social media where the unconfirmed figures of terrorists killed were being calculated.”
Earlier, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has said the Indian government would not share proof that “a very large number” of militants were reportedly killed in the Balakot air strikes on February 26, after doubts were raised that there were casualties in the attack that stoked tensions between the two nuclear-armed countries.
On February 26, Indian fighter jets had carried out air strikes in Balakot on what the Modi administration alleged were ‘militant camps’. Islamabad has denied any such camps existed.On the same day, Indian Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale had claimed that Indian Air Force (IAF) jets had destroyed a key ‘terror camp’ and killed scores of terrorists.
The figure informally leaked to the Indian media by the Indian government sources had put the number of slain terrorists at 300.
The Indian foreign secretary had stated that a very large number of terrorists, trainers, senior commanders and groups of militants had been eliminated.
The attack site has been visited by several international news teams. Two Reuters reporters, who visited the area, quoted villagers as saying no militant camps existed in the area.
The Reuters team also found that villagers had heard four loud bangs at the time of the attack, but said only one person had been wounded by bomb shards.
It also said the damage from the strike was limited to about 15 pine trees being brought down in the area. Al Jazeera journalists also visited the attack site and quoted witnesses and local journalists as saying that the munitions dropped by the Indian aircraft had hit an uninhabited forest in Balakot. Additionally, Associated Press journalists visiting the site saw several large craters and upended trees but no sign of remnants of a terrorist training camp. And increasingly, questions are also being raised in the Indian media regarding the Indian government’s version of events.
Finally on Thursday, New Delhi presented what it claimed was ‘incontrovertible proof’ that Pakistan used its F-16 fighter jets in Wednesday’s air action in the form of the remains of an American-made missile.
“There is enough evidence to show that F-16s were used in this mission through their electronic signatures. Parts of AMRAAM air-to-air missile which is carried only on Pakistani F-16s was recovered east of Rajouri within the Indian territory,” announced Indian Air Vice Marshal RGK Kapoor, flanked by two other top officials from India’s other two military services.
By insisting that the missile could only have been launched from an F-16, the Indian military brass had hoped that presenting the wreckage would bolster their claim of having shot down a PAF jet of the type. However, in their haste to shift the narrative, the Indian military overlooked a crucial detail that could connect the wreckage to a batch of missiles sold to Taiwan.
Markings on the wreckage displayed by Indian generals at a much-vaunted news conference identified the missile as an AIM-120C-5 AMRAAM. The markings also identified the contract number of the missile as FA8675-05-C-0070.
A Google search The Express Tribune ran using the keyword ‘AMRAAM’ along with the serial number in question returned links to a US Department of Defense (DoD) document titled “Report to Congress on Department Of Defense Sales of Significant Military Equipment to Foreign Entities Fiscal Year 2009”.
The report revealed that contract number FA867505C0070 corresponded to a batch of AIM-120C-5 AMRAAM missiles supplied to Taiwan in a Foreign Military Sale worth $2.38 million.The flare-up appeared to be easing on Saturday after Islamabad handed back captured IAF Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman Friday night.
“There was neither any compulsion nor any pressure to release the Indian pilot. Pakistan does not want regional peace to be put at stake for the sake of [Indian] politics,” Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said while addressing a news conference on Saturday, a day after Pakistan freed the IAF pilot.
However, the latest act of aggression by India came a day after the release of the pilot.
THE DAWN
JF-17, not F-16, used in air combat: report
The JF-17 is a Chinese-designed fighter jet produced jointly by Pakistan and China. — APP/File
WASHINGTON: Apparently, it was a JF-17 fighter jet that brought down an Indian warplane in Azad Jammu and Kashmir last week, says a CNN report as an American diplomat said Washington wanted to know if Pakistan used a US-built F-16 jet to shoot the plane.
The JF-17 is a Chinese-designed fighter jet produced jointly by Pakistan and China.
“It may have been one of those jets that on Wednesday downed an Indian Air Force fighter plane, leading to the capture by Pakistan of an Indian pilot” AbhinandanVarthaman, said the CNN report released this weekend. The report also noted that the Indian jet was a MiG-21, a Soviet-designed aircraft, which has been in service since the 1960s. The MiG-21 “forms the backbone” of the Indian Air Force, which has about 200 of those in its inventory.
Nishank Motwani, a visiting fellow at the Asia-Pacific College of Diplomacy, Acton, Australia, told CNN that Indian pilots called the plane “a flying coffin” because it had been involved in multiple accidents.
“And that illustrates a problem for India. While it has a massive military budget, a significant chunk of that goes toward maintenance of existing equipment, and salaries,” the report added.
The report included a quote from a recent inquiry by an Indian parliament committee, saying: “Modernisation gets a mere 14 per cent (of allocated funds), which is grossly inadequate.”
A spokesperson for the US Embassy in Islamabad told the Reuters news agency on Sunday that the United States was “seeking information” on whether Pakistan used US-built F-16 jets to down the Indian warplane, which may violate the F-16 sale agreements between Washington and Islamabad.
Pakistan said it did not use F-16s in shooting down the Indian fighter jet when it crossed the Line of Control. Islamabad also said that this was an act of self-defence.
“We are aware of these reports and are seeking more information,” the US Embassy spokesperson said. “We take all allegations of misuse of defence articles very seriously.”
The US often inserts restrictions on how its exported military hardware can be used through so-called end-user agreements.
India claimed that AIM-120C-5 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile had been fired recently, showing that F-16 Viper fighter jets were “at least involved” in recent strikes in the region. Pakistan rejected the Indian claim as completely baseless. India also claimed that it shot down one of the Vipers.
Pakistan rejected this claim as well, saying that since it had not used any F-16 jets, the question of one being shot down did not arise.
CRACKDOWN ON TERRORIST AND MILITANT OUTFITS IMMINENT?
Information minister says the decision to launch crackdown against militant groups is in accordance with NAP. — Reuters/File
ISLAMABAD: A decisive crackdown on extremist and militant organisations in the country looks imminent.
“The action would soon be visible as things progress,” a source told a group of journalists at a background briefing on Sunday.
The imminence of an action against extremist groups was confirmed by Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry while talking in DawnNews programme Do Raaye. He said the government had taken a firm decision that there would be a stern action against all militant groups. This, he said, was in accordance with the political consensus contained in the National Action Plan (NAP).
The information minister refused to give any timeline for the operation against militant groups like Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), accused of masterminding the Pulwama attack that triggered the latest crisis with India and took both nuclear-armed rivals close to war, and JamaatudDawa (JuD) and its charity wing Falah-i-Insaniat Foundation (FIF). Mr Chaudhry said the timeline was something for the security forces to decide.
The National Security Committee had in its Feb 21 meeting “decided to accelerate action against proscribed organisations” and ordered re-imposition of ban on JuD and FIF. Prime Minister Imran Khan had on that occasion, while emphasising eradication of “militancy and extremism” from society, said the state could not be allowed to “become hostage to extremists”.
Pakistan to review stance on listing of Masood Azhar by UNSC as terrorist
The source categorically denied that the action was in response to Indian pressure after the Pulwama incident and said the decision had been taken much before the Feb 14 attack on Indian security forces in Pulwama, although it became public later. The dossier given by India on the Pulwama attack, he maintained, contained nothing except an iteration of its narrative on alleged Pakistan-based groups.
“We are taking action in our national interest. We have to correct the course. We cannot leave this mess for our next generation,” the source said, adding that the “existing political consensus within the country was an opportunity to take Pakistan on the positive track”.
He said the action would help deal with the issues arising out of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) listing. Pakistan, despite making significant progress on the initial concerns of FATF, came under renewed pressure at the Paris plenary last month.
The source said at the briefing that there could be law enforcement actions against JeM, JuD and FIF. However, it was clear from the conversation that Pakistan would also review its stance on the issue of listing of JeM leader Masood Azhar by the United Nations Security Council. “No individual is more important than Pakistan,” he said while responding to a question. “Pakistan won’t make it a matter of ego,” he said in response to another. “We won’t test our friends either,” he said in reference to China that has been maintaining a technical hold on Azhar’s listing by the UNSC.
The United States, Britain and France — three permanent members of the UNSC with veto power — have again, after Pulwama, moved the Security Council for designation of Azhar as a global terrorist.
When asked why Pakistan had in the past failed in acting against the proscribed groups, the source said the elements of NAP relating to military had been implemented, but those pertaining of civilians lagged behind because of lack of “capacity, capability and will”. He pointed to compulsions of certain political leaders as one reason, but said no one could be absolved of responsibility.
“It was decided in NAP in 2014 that there would action against proscribed groups. That required strategic shift and such changes take time,” he emphasised, observing that time had now come to decisively against these groups.
Talking about the latest confrontation with India in which ‘a strategic pause’ in hostilities was obvious on Sunday, he said it was in the interest of Pakistan to ‘exit’ from the face-off at this stage when it had attained “moral, diplomatic and military ascendancy” over India.
However, India’s case was different, he argued, saying that it might be a tough decision for Prime Minister Narendra Modi to de-escalate at this stage because of the political cost. “That’s why they are taking time. Now that the strategic pause is there, they would have gone back to re-evaluate their options.”
Photo – Courtesy Dawn / The Nation
(Compiled by Shri VK Gaur, former IG, BSF, who has written more than 50 Books on the issues related to Defence, Strategy and Internal security.)