Five Pakistan fighter jets – US-made F-16s and Chinese J-17s – were shot down by India during Operation Sindoor, Air Chief Marshal AP Singh said Friday, elaborating on comments from early August. The Air Force then said six Pak aircraft – five fighters and a ‘big bird’, likely an AEW&C (airborne early warning and control) plane – had been destroyed in mid-air strikes by India.
The Air Force chief said today the Indian military has evidence of at least one long-range strike on an AEW&C aircraft and four to five strikes on fighter jets during Operation Sindoor.
Besides the six hit mid-air, he had then confirmed the destruction of Pak Air Force bases, specifically in Jacobabad and Bholari, and said more F-16s and at least one other AEW&C aircraft had been destroyed.
Precision strikes by the Indian military also disabled radar systems, Command & Control centres, and runways, hangars and other critical military infrastructure, he repeated today.
Operation Sindoor was India’s armed response to the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack, in which 26 people, mostly civilians, were killed in the worst such strike in decades. India flagged Islamabad’s involvement in the attack carried out by an offshoot of the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba.
The Indian government also called out Pak’s continued support of cross-border terrorism.
The government then presented evidence of its claims to the global community before acting on verified intel to strike known terrorist camps and bases in Pakistan and Pak-occupied Kashmir.
Nine such camps were neutralised, including the HQs of the Lashkar and the Jaish-e-Mohammed, which was responsible for the attack in J&K’s Pulwama in 2019.
The Air Force chief also said it was Pak that asked India for a ceasefire, underlining the government’s repeated assertion on this subject, that cessation of hostilities on May 10 was the result of Islamabad suing for peace rather than United States President Donald Trump intervening and bullying the two nations into stopping the conflict.
The Air Force chief also said the world witnessed the power and precision of the Indian military as it targeted and neutralised nine terror camps and bases in Pakistan and Pak-occupied Kashmir in retaliation for the terror attack on civilians in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam.
“In Operation Sindoor, you saw the terrorists paid the price for killing innocent people… and the world saw we achieved our goal. We struck targets across 300 km, then they (Pakistan) asked for the ceasefire,” he said, also praising the country’s air defence systems for successfully repelling or shooting down Pakistani missiles or drones during the nearly 100-hour conflict.
Over the past four months Trump has several times claimed credit for the ceasefire, including making statements to that effect in the United Nations General Assembly and in meetings with other world leaders. He repeated that claim on Wednesday in remarks to American military officials; “I had India and Pakistan, (they) were going at it. And I called them both, and in this case, I used trade,” he boasted.
The Air Force chief, however, also offered a warning of the evolution of military conflict over the next several generations. ‘The next war will be different from the previous one. We must be prepared now and for the future as well,” he said.