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India bombs Pakistan, saying it targeted terrorist camps in cross-border air raid
An Indian minister claimed that the country’s aircraft made a successful bombing run against terrorists on the Pakistani-controlled side of Kashmir. Pakistan said the Indian jets “released a payload” while fleeing.
“Air Force carried out aerial strike early morning today at terror camps across the LoC [Line of Control] and Completely destroyed it,” the minister of state of agriculture, Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, tweeted on Tuesday.
ये मोदी का हिंदुस्तान है, घर में घुसेगा भी और मारेगा भी,
Air Force carried out aerial strike early morning today at terror camps across the LoC and Completely destroyed it
एक एक क़तरा ख़ून का हिसाब होगा !ये तो एक शुरुआत है .. ये देश नहीं झुकने दूंगा...#Balakot #Surgicalstrike2 pic.twitter.com/fqYJgWxuqX
— Gajendra Singh Shekhawat (@gssjodhpur) February 26, 2019
According to Indian media, 12 Mirage 2000 fighter jets bombed sites belonging to Jaish-e-Mohammed jihadist group, active in Kashmir. The strikes were “100 percent successful” and went “exactly as planned,” NDTV reported, citing sources.
It was the first time Indian warplanes have crossed the Line of Control (LoC), separating the nations in Kashmir, since 1971, when the two states were waging open war against each other.
The Pakistani military confirmed the incursion of the Indian jets into its territory but offered their own account of what happened next. The army’s spokesperson, Major General Asif Ghafoor, said the Indian aircraft released a payload in haste “under forced hastily withdrawal” from the jets scrambled to intercept it, and claimed there were no casualties and “no infrastructure was hit” during the raid.
Indian aircrafts’ intrusion across LOC in Muzafarabad Sector within AJ&K was 3-4 miles.Under forced hasty withdrawal aircrafts released payload which had free fall in open area. No infrastructure got hit, no casualties. Technical details and other important information to follow.
— Maj Gen Asif Ghafoor (@OfficialDGISPR) February 26, 2019
Ghafoor posted photos showing pieces of a munition he said was dropped by “hastily escaping” Indian aircraft. The photos also showed trees allegedly destroyed in the raid.
Payload of hastily escaping Indian aircrafts fell in open. pic.twitter.com/8drYtNGMsm
— Maj Gen Asif Ghafoor (@OfficialDGISPR) February 26, 2019
Tensions in the contested region have run high for weeks ever since a suicide car targeted Indian military police, killing 40.
The terrorist attack has prompted calls for ‘surgical strikes’ 2.0, a repeat of the 2016 cross-border ground operation ordered by Indian Prime Minister Modi in response to an attack on an Indian Army base in the Himalayan valley that killed 18 soldiers.
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In a pre-dawn airstrike at 3:30 a.m. on Tuesday, 12 Indian Mirage 2000 fighter jets intruded into Pakistan’s airspace and dropped their payload on the top of a mountain at a terrorist training camp, allegedly belonging to a jihadist group that had claimed responsibility for the Pulwama attack in the Indian-administered Kashmir on February 14 in which more than 40 Indian soldiers had lost their lives.
The Pakistan military is preparing to defend against future attacks by India, and would respond with “full force,” the army’s spokesman announced Friday, amid worries of retaliation from India after the Pulwama terror incident, reported Reuters.
India has threatened to completely isolate neighbor Pakistan on a global scale following a suicide car bomb attack which killed 44 paramilitary police officers in the disputed Kashmir region. The suicide attack on a large convoy of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) was the deadliest attack on security forces in the disputed region since the 1989 insurgency began.
