2019 Balakot airstrike

2019 Balakot airstrike
Part of 2019 India–Pakistan border skirmishes
Date26 February 2019 (2019-02-26)
Location
Balakot, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan
Result
  • (26 February 2019) Indian bombing raid conducted within Pakistani territory, no consequential targets hit.[1][2]
Belligerents

 India

 Pakistan

Commanders and leaders
Air Chief Marshal Birender Singh Dhanoa Air Chief Marshal Mujahid Anwar Khan
Units involved
Unknown Unknown
Strength
Unknown Unknown

The 2019 Balakot airstrike was a bombing raid conducted by Indian warplanes on 26 February 2019 in Balakot, Pakistan, against an alleged training camp of the terrorist group Jaish-e-Mohammed.[3][4] Open source satellite imagery has revealed that no targets of consequence were hit.[1][2][5] The following day, Pakistan shot down an Indian warplane and took its pilot, Abhinandan Varthaman, as prisoner.[6][7] Indian anti-aircraft fire downed an Indian helicopter killing six or seven airmen on board,[8][9] their deaths receiving perfunctory coverage by Indian media.[10] India claimed that a Pakistani F-16 fighter jet was downed, but that claim has been debunked.[5][by whom?] The airstrike was used by India's ruling party to bolster its patriotic appeal in the general elections of April 2019.[11]

The airstrike was conducted by India in the early morning hours of 26 February when Indian warplanes crossed the de facto border in the disputed region of Kashmir and dropped bombs in the vicinity of the town of Balakot in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in Pakistan.[12][13] Pakistan's military, the first to announce the airstrike in the morning of 26 February,[14] described the Indian planes as dropping their payload in an uninhabited wooded hilltop area near Balakot.[15]

India, confirming the airstrike later the same day, characterized it to be a preemptive strike directed against a terrorist training camp, and causing the deaths of a "large number" of terrorists.[16] Satellite imagery analyzed by the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensics Laboratory,[17] Reuters,[18] European Space Imaging,[19] and the Australian Strategic Policy Institute,[20] has concluded that India did not hit any targets of significance on the Jaba hilltop site in the vicinity of Balakot.[21][22]

The following day on 27 February, in a tit-for-tat airstrike,[23] Pakistan retaliated,[24] causing an Indian warplane to be shot down and its pilot to be taken prisoner by the Pakistan military before being returned on 1 March.[25][26] An Indian Mi-17 helicopter was brought down by friendly fire in which all six airmen on board were killed; this was acknowledged by India on 4 October 2019.[27] The airstrikes were the first time since the India-Pakistan war of 1971 that warplanes of either country crossed the Line of Control and also since both states became nuclear powers.[a]

On 10 April 2019, 47 days after the airstrike, some international journalists, who were taken to the Jaba hilltop in a tightly controlled trip arranged by Pakistani government, found the largest building of the site to show no evidence of damage or recent rebuilding.[29][30][31][32]

  1. ^ a b Lalwani, Sameer; Tallo, Emily (17 April 2019), "Did India shoot down a Pakistani F-16 in February? This just became a big deal: There are broader implications for India – and the United States", Washington Post, But these latest details about the India-Pakistan air battles threaten to discredit the BJP narrative and undermine its electoral prospects. Open-source satellite imagery revealed India did not hit any targets of consequence in the airstrikes it conducted after the terrorist attack on the paramilitaries. Additionally, reporting indicates that during the Feb. 27 air battle, friendly fire from an air-defense missile brought down an Indian military helicopter, killing six military personnel.
  2. ^ a b Hall, Ian (2019), "India's 2019 General Election: National Security and the Rise of the Watchmen", The Round Table: The Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs, 108 (5): 507–519, 510, doi:10.1080/00358533.2019.1658360, S2CID 203266692, Ten days after these comments, on 26 February, Modi gave the order for air strikes against alleged JeM facilities. Significantly, the target – near the town of Balakot – was not in Pakistani-administered Kashmir, but in Pakistan proper. … There the Indian Air Force (IAF) bombed a madrassa New Delhi claimed was a terrorist training camp associated with the JeM. The attack was acclaimed a success by the IAF, which claimed that several buildings were destroyed and up to 300 militants killed, but independent analysts suggest that it actually failed, with the missiles falling in nearby woods, rather than on their intended target (Ruser, 2019).
  3. ^ Jaffrelot, Christophe (2021), Modi's India: Hindu Nationalism and the Rise of Ethnic Democracy, Princeton University Press, ISBN 9780691223094, By way of response, Modi ordered air strikes to be conducted on Pakistani territory. A Jaish-e-Mohammed training camp was allegedly destroyed in Balakot.
  4. ^ "Kashmir", Encyclopedia Britannica, 11 November 2021, retrieved 15 January 2022, With a tough election cycle approaching, India's BJP-led government faced pressure from its supporters to take forceful action. Days later India sent fighter jets across Kashmir's line of control for the first time in five decades and later claimed to have conducted air strikes against the militant group's largest training camp.
  5. ^ a b Markey, Daniel (2022), "The Strategic Implications of India's Illiberalism and Democratic Erosion", Asia Policy, 17 (1), National Bureau of Asian Research: 77–105, doi:10.1353/asp.2022.0010, S2CID 246816912, The Modi government's public mischaracterizations of the February 2019 Balakot airstrike and subsequent air skirmishes, including subsequently debunked claims of a destroyed terrorist camp inside Pakistan and India's downing of a Pakistani F-16 jet, have already raised questions in the United States about New Delhi's credibility and communications strategy in the midst of an exceptionally dangerous regional context.
  6. ^ Jaffrelot, Christophe (2021), Modi's India: Hindu Nationalism and the Rise of Ethnic Democracy, Princeton University Press, ISBN 9780691223094, In the operation, the Indian Air Force lost a plane and a pilot, Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman (who would eventually be returned to India and came back as a hero)
  7. ^ Encyclopaedia Britannica (2021), "Kashmir", retrieved 15 January 2022, Days later India sent fighter jets across Kashmir's line of control for the first time in five decades and later claimed to have conducted air strikes against the militant group's largest training camp. Pakistan denied the claim, saying that the jets had struck an empty field. The next day, Pakistan shot down two Indian jets in its airspace and captured a pilot. {{citation}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  8. ^ Tarapore, Arzan (2021), "Almost Parity: Understanding the India–Pakistan Conventional Military Balance", Routledge Handbook of South Asian Foreign Policy, Routledge, p. 413, India, for example, launched an air strike in February 2019 in response to a Pakistan-based terrorist attack, against what it claimed was a terrorist training facility in Balakot, Pakistan – although it remains unclear whether the target was actually destroyed. Pakistan responded with its own aerial incursion across the Line of Control the next day, during which it shot down one Indian fighter, and Indian anti-aircraft fire shot down an Indian helicopter. Those skirmishes provide only small and anecdotal evidence, but they suggest two lessons. First, with an air strike of dubious effect, an unanswered loss in air-to-air combat, and a loss to friendly fire, India cannot confidently claim dominance in the air domain.
  9. ^ Hall, Ian (2019), "India's 2019 General Election: National Security and the Rise of the Watchmen", The Round Table: The Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs, 108 (5): 507–519, 510, doi:10.1080/00358533.2019.1658360, S2CID 203266692, The following day Pakistan's Air Force sent some of its aircraft towards the LoC, enticing the IAF to pursue them. In the ensuing dogfight, an IAF MiG-21 was shot down and its pilot, Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman, captured by Pakistani forces. In the confusion, there was more bad news for India, with an IAF Mi-17 helicopter accidentally shot down by friendly fire, killing seven
  10. ^ Jaffrelot, Christophe (2021), Modi's India: Hindu Nationalism and the Rise of Ethnic Democracy, Princeton University Press, ISBN 9780691223094, ... mistakenly shot down one of its own helicopters, killing six airmen. Despite the mixed results of these air strikes, Modi managed to portray himself as India's protector in a campaign dominated by nationalist and even warmongering rhetoric – largely because the fact that six airmen had died was hardly reported by the media.
  11. ^ Jaffrelot, Christophe (2021), Modi's India: Hindu Nationalism and the Rise of Ethnic Democracy, Princeton University Press, ISBN 9780691223094, Modi managed to portray himself as India's protector in a campaign dominated by nationalist and even warmongering rhetoric – largely because the fact that six airmen had died was hardly reported by the media.
  12. ^ Joanna Slater (26 February 2019), "India strikes Pakistan in severe escalation of tensions between nuclear rivals", Washington Post
  13. ^ Michael Safi; Mehreen Zahra-Malik; Azar Farooq (26 February 2019), "'Get ready for our surprise': Pakistan warns India it will respond to airstrikes", Guardian Quote: "Pakistan, ... said the war planes made it up to five miles inside its territory"
  14. ^ Michael Safi; Mehreen Zahra-Malik; Azar Farooq (26 February 2019), "'Get ready for our surprise': Pakistan warns India it will respond to airstrikes", Guardian Quote: "Pakistan, which was the first to announce the incursion, ..."
  15. ^ Maria Abi-Habib; Austin Ramzy (25 February 2019), "Indian Jets Strike in Pakistan in Revenge for Kashmir Attack", The New York Times Quote: "A spokesman for Pakistan's armed forces, Maj. Gen. Asif Ghafoor, on Tuesday posted on Twitter four images of a forested area pockmarked with small craters and debris, which he said was the site of Indian airstrikes."
  16. ^ Slater, Joanna; Constable, Pamela (27 February 2019). "Pakistan captures Indian pilot after shooting down aircraft, escalating hostilities". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on 27 February 2019. Retrieved 27 February 2019.
  17. ^ "Surgical Strike in Pakistan a Botched Operation? Indian jets carried out a strike against JEM targets inside Pakistani territory, to questionable effect", Medium, 28 February 2019 Quote: "Indian fighter jets carried out strikes against targets inside undisputed Pakistani territory, but open-source evidence suggested that the strike was unsuccessful."
  18. ^ Martin Howell; Gerry Doyle; Simon Scarr (5 March 2019), Satellite images show buildings still standing at Indian bombing site, Reuters Quote: "The images produced by Planet Labs Inc, a San Francisco-based private satellite operator, show at least six buildings on the madrasa site on March 4, six days after the airstrike. ... There are no discernible holes in the roofs of buildings, no signs of scorching, blown-out walls, displaced trees around the madrasa or other signs of an aerial attack."
  19. ^ European Space Imaging (8 March 2019), Satellite Imagery confirms India missed target in Pakistan airstrike Quote: " ... said managing director Adrian Zevenbergen. '... The image captured with Worldiew-2 of the buildings in question shows no evidence of a bombing having occurred. There are no signs of scorching, no large distinguishable holes in the roofs of buildings and no signs of stress to the surrounding vegetation.' "
  20. ^ Marcus Hellyer; Nathan Ruser; Aakriti Bachhawat (27 March 2019), "India's strike on Balakot: a very precise miss?", The Strategist, Australian Strategic Policy Institute Quote: "But India's recent air strike on a purported Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorist camp in Balakot in Pakistan on 26 February suggests that precision strike is still an art and science that requires both practice and enabling systems to achieve the intended effect. Simply buying precision munitions off the shelf is not enough."
  21. ^ Sameer Lalwani; Emily Tallo (17 April 2019), "Did India shoot down a Pakistani F-16 in February? This just became a big deal", Washington Post Quote: " Open-source satellite imagery suggests India did not hit any targets of consequence in the airstrikes it conducted after the terrorist attack on the paramilitaries.
  22. ^ Michael Safi; Mehreen Zahra-Malik (5 March 2019), "Kashmir's fog of war: how conflicting accounts benefit both sides:India and Pakistan's differing narratives are not unusual in the social media age, say experts", Guardian Quote: "Analysis of open-source satellite imagery has also cast doubt on India's claims. A report by the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab was able to geolocate the site of the attack and provide a preliminary damage assessment. It compared satellite images from the days before and after India's strike and concluded there were only impacts in the wooded areas with no damage visible to surrounding structures."
  23. ^ Joanna Slater; Pamela Constable (27 February 2019), "Pakistan captures Indian pilot after shooting down aircraft, escalating hostilities", Washington Post Quote: The two days of tit-for-tat airstrikes ... the first since 1971, were triggered by a 14 Feb terrorist bombing in Indian-controlled Kashmir that killed 40 Indian security personnel."
  24. ^ Amy Kazmin (1 March 2019), "India and Pakistan engage in a high-stakes game of brinkmanship", Financial Times Quote: "A day after India's strike, Pakistan retaliated, sending planes to attack military installations in India."
  25. ^ Joanna Slater; Pamela Constable (27 February 2019), "Pakistan captures Indian pilot after shooting down aircraft, escalating hostilities", Washington Post
  26. ^ Jeffrey Gettleman; Hari Kumar; Samir Yasir (2 March 2019), "Deadly Shelling Erupts in Kashmir Between India and Pakistan After Pilot Is Freed", The New York Times, On Wednesday, Pakistan mobilized its air force and shot down an Indian fighter jet above Kashmir, capturing the pilot. On Friday, Pakistan released the pilot, Wing Cmdr. Abhinandan Varthaman, calling it a gesture to ease tensions.
  27. ^ AFP, Staff Writer (4 October 2019), India admits friendly fire downed Mi-17 helicopter in Kashmir, Washington, DC: The Defense Post, retrieved 9 February 2021, The Indian Air Force confirmed for the first time on Friday, October 4 that it shot down one of its own Mi-17 helicopters during clashes with Pakistan in February over Kashmir, killing all six on board.
  28. ^ Teh-Kuang Chang; Angelin Chang; Brent T. Gerchicoff (2017). Routledge Handbook of Asia in World Politics. Routledge. ISBN 978-1317404262.
  29. ^ Martin Howell; Salahuddin (11 April 2019). "Inside the Pakistani madrasa where India said it killed hundreds of 'terrorists'". Reuters. Retrieved 28 March 2024. Quote: "Those visiting the site on Wednesday didn't see any signs that there had been significant building work to either clear structures or erect new ones. And the vegetation didn't appear to have suffered the stress that might be expected from a missile attack."
  30. ^ "Balakot air strike: Pakistan shows off disputed site on eve of India election", BBC News, 10 April 2019 Quote: "They were given access to an Islamic school in Balakot, where Indian media say militants were killed in retaliation for an attack in Kashmir. The large building appeared to be fully intact ..."
  31. ^ Agence France Presse (11 April 2019), "Pakistan takes media, diplomats on visit to Indian strike site", france24, AFP Quote: "International outlets which visited the Indian air strike site in Pakistan found no evidence of a major terrorist training camp – or of any infrastructure damage at all."
  32. ^ Siobhan Heanue (14 April 2019), "The remote school at the centre of a dispute between nuclear neighbours Pakistan and India", Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) Quote: "One thing is clear: India's claim that it destroyed a militant training camp and killed more than 300 extremists cannot be backed up by the evidence. More than a month after India launched airstrikes inside Pakistan in retaliation for a militant attack that killed 40 paramilitary troops in Kashmir, foreign media have been allowed to see the areas hit."


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