SITUATION CRITICAL
It also carried out airstrikes a day after Indian warplanes hit Pakistan for the first time since 1971 war
PAKISTAN carried out airstrikes and shot down two Indian jets yesterday, Pakistani officials said, a day after Indian warplanes struck inside Pakistan for the first time since a war in 1971, prompting several world powers to urge both sides to show restraint.
Both sides ordered airstrikes over the last two days, the first time in history that two nucleararmed powers have done so, while ground forces exchanged fire in more than a dozen locations.
Tension has been elevated since a suicide car bombing by Pakistanbased militants in Indian-controlled Kashmir killed at least 40 Indian paramilitary police on Feb 14, but the risk of conflict rose dramatically on Tuesday when India launched an airstrike on what it said was a militant training base.
Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan yesterday called for talks with India and hoped “better sense” would prevail so that both sides could de-escalate.
“History tells us that wars are full of miscalculation. My question is that given the weapons we have, can we afford miscalculation?” Khan said during a brief televised broadcast to the nation. “We should sit down and talk.”
India’s attack on Tuesday had targeted the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), the group that claimed credit for the suicide attack.
India said a large number of JeM fighters had been killed, but Pakistani officials said the strike was a failure and inflicted no casualties.
Pakistan and India have fought three wars since independence from British colonial rule in 1947 and was on the brink of a fourth in 2002 after a Pakistani militant attack on India’s Parliament.
The latest escalation marks a sudden turnaround in relations between the two countries, that both claim the mountainous Himalayan region of Kashmir in full but rule in part. As recently as November, Khan spoke of “mending ties” with India.
United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo spoke separately with the foreign ministers of India and Pakistan and urged them to avoid “further military activity” following Tuesday’s airstrike.
“I expressed to both ministers that we encourage India and Pakistan to exercise restraint, and avoid escalation at any cost,” Pompeo said yesterday.
“I also encouraged both ministers to prioritise direct communication and avoid further military activity.”
China and the European Union also called for restraint.
Many of the facts in the latest series of engagements were disputed by the two sides.
Major-General Asif Ghafoor, a spokesman for the Pakistan armed forces, said Pakistan carried out six airstrikes in Indian-occupied Kashmir after Indian jets entered its airspace.
India denied this, saying Pakistan initiated the engagement by targeting military installations.
Describing the Pakistani air mission before the downing of the Indian jets, Ghafoor said Pakistani planes “locked” on Indian ground targets to demonstrate their capabilities to strike, but deliberately fired elsewhere on open spaces where there would be no casualties.
One of the aircraft fell on India’s side of Kashmir, while the second came down in Pakistani-held territory with two pilots captured, he said.
Raveesh Kumar, a spokesman for India’s Foreign Ministry, gave a different account, telling a news briefing that Pakistan airstrikes on military targets were “foiled”.
India shot down one Pakistani plane that landed in Pakistani territory, and said it had lost one of its own planes, not two, with the pilot “missing in action”, Raveesh said.
“Pakistan has claimed that he is in their custody. We are ascertaining the facts.”
At the Pakistani briefing, Ghafoor produced photographs of weapons and identity documents he said were carried by Indian pilots.
The Pakistan government’s official Twitter account released a video of what it claimed was one of the Indian pilots who had been shot down.
The man, whose face was bloodied and blindfolded, gave his name and service number, before telling a man questioning him: “I'm sorry, sir, that’s all I’m supposed to tell you.”