US Officials’ Count of Pakistan’s F-16 Jets Contradicts India’s Claim of Shooting Down One: Report
Per a report in Foreign Policy, two US officials claimed that none of Pakistan’s F-16s were missing.
United States (US) defence personnel recently counted Pakistan’s F-16 fighter jets and found none of them missing, directly contradicting India’s claim that it shot down an F-16 in February amid the military escalation that followed the Balakot airstrike.
Lara Seligman reporting for the Foreign Policy magazine wrote, citing sources, that two senior US defence officials with direct knowledge of the confirmed that all jets were accounted for during the physical count.
It has thrown a shadow of doubt on the Indian government’s version of events, suggesting the Modi-led government may have misled the international community about what happened.
MIT associate professor of political science Vipin Narang reportedly said that the course of events may determine India’s efforts to deter Pakistan in the future.
Narang told Foreign Policy, “As details come out, it looks worse and worse for the Indians… It looks increasingly like India failed to impose significant costs on Pakistan, but lost a plane and a helicopter of its own in the process.”
One senior US defence official with direct knowledge of the count told Foreign Policy that Pakistan invited the US to physically count its F-16 planes, as part of an end-user agreement.
The agreement entails that the receiving country, in this case Pakistan, allow U.S. officials to inspect the equipment regularly to ensure it is accounted for and protected.
The official reportedly said that it took US personnel a few weeks to account for all the jets, as they were not immediately available for inspection due to the conflict.
After the count was completed, “all aircraft were present and accounted for,” the official reportedly said.
A second senior U.S. defence official also told Foreign Policy that US authorities on the ground did not find any Pakistani F-16s missing.
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