Islamabad:
Defense Minister Khawaja Asif dismissed on Saturday the claims of the head of the Air Force of India (IAF) about the destruction of Pakistani combat aircraft during the Sondoor operation, calling them “as unlikely as they don’t have much time.”
The scathing replica occurred hours after the head of the Chief of Air, AP Singh, affirmed that the IAF had knocked down five Pakistani combat planes and another military plane during the military confrontation in May that, according to Pakistani officials, the IAF lost six war planes.
In a statement published on the microblogging site “X”, the Minister of Defense, Asif, said it was “ironic” that the senior Indian military officers were forced to face “a monumental failure caused by the strategic myopia of Indian politicians.”
He added that for three months after the operation, such statements were not made, while Pakistan had immediately provided “detailed technical sessions” to the international media, backed by independent observations that recognize the loss of multiple Indian planes, including Rafale airplanes, as reported by world leaders, senior Indian politicians and foreign intelligence evaluations.
The IAF operates 36 Rafale fighters, while India signed an agreement with France in April to buy another 26 Rafale aircraft worth $ 7.4 billion for its Navy, which has a fleet mainly that includes the Russian Mig-29 aircraft. Rafale is a double engine multirrome combat plane designed and built by Dassault Aviation in France.
While India officially denies the destruction of any of its combat planes, the French general chief Jerome Bellanger has said that he has seen evidence of the loss of three Indian combatants.
Asif reiterated that “a single Pakistani plane was not hit,” and added that Pakistan had destroyed six Indian aircraft, S-400 air defense batteries and unmanned planes, while disabled several Indian air bases. He said that the Indian forces had also suffered “disproportionately heavier” losses along the control line.
Challenging India to “open the inventories of their planes to independent verification,” the minister warned that such scrutiny “would expose the reality that India seeks to get dark.” He warned that “wars are not won by falsehoods, but by moral authority, national resolution and professional competence”, added that politically motivated “comic narratives increased the risk of strategic calculation error in a nuclearized region.
Remembering the Bunyanum Marsoos operation, the Minister of Defense said that “every violation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Pakistan will invite a quick, safe and proportional response”, and that any escalation would be the responsibility of “strategically blind leaders” that rise the peace of southern Asia by “the political profits of fleet.”
Asif’s statement occurred hours after the IAF chief said they had demolished five PAF combat planes and another military plane during the Sindoor operation. Most Pakistani aircraft said Singh, were shot down by the Russian S-400 Missile System of India. In addition, he said that the electronic follow -up data confirmed the strikes.
“We have at least five confirmed combatants killed, and a large plane,” he said, adding that the big plane, which could be a surveillance plane, was shot down at a distance of 300 km. “This is actually the largest registered surface death,” he added.
Singh did not mention the type of combat aircraft supposedly demolished, but said that the air attacks also reached another surveillance plane and combatants “some F-16” that were parked in hangars in two air bases in southeast Pakistan.
