New Delhi, July 19: US President Donald Trump has stirred controversy with a startling claim that “five jets were shot down” in the recent armed confrontation between India and Pakistan following the April 22 terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam area in which 26 people were killed.
India had launched ‘Operation Sindoor’ to destroy terror bases in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir after that. President Trump’s remarks, made during a private dinner with Republican lawmakers at the White House on Friday, reignited discussion around the intense four-day military escalation between the Nuclear-armed neighbours in early May.
“In fact, planes were being shot out of the air. Five, five, four or five, but I think five jets were shot down actually,” President Trump said, referring to the brief but high-stakes military exchange between India and Pakistan.
However, the US President did not clarify which country’s aircraft were downed or provide evidence to support the claim. President Trump also claimed that the United States played a role in defusing tensions through economic leverage.
“We stopped a lot of wars. And these were serious, India and Pakistan, that was going on. These are two serious Nuclear countries, and they were hitting each other,” he said.
“You know, it seems like a new form of warfare. You saw it recently when you looked at what we did in Iran, where we knocked out their Nuclear capability… But India and Pakistan were going at it, and it was getting bigger and bigger, and we got it solved through trade.
We said, ‘you guys want to make a trade deal. We’re not making a trade deal if you’re going to be throwing around weapons, and maybe nuclear weapons’, both very powerful nuclear states.”
President Trump’s comments have been met with skepticism in India, which maintains that no foreign power, including the US, acted as a mediator in resolving the crisis. Indian officials reiterated that New Delhi and Islamabad addressed the situation bilaterally and rejected the notion that trade pressure from Washington played a decisive role.
India’s military response, codenamed Operation Sindoor, began on the night of May 7. The Indian Armed Forces, Army, Air Force, and Navy, jointly launched a series of strikes targeting terrorist infrastructure across the Line of Control and deep inside Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.
The operation followed the deadly Pahalgam terror attack that claimed 26 lives, including those of tourists. Despite the intensity of the exchange, India has maintained that none of its fighter jets were lost in combat.
On May 11, Air Marshal A.K. Bharti publicly stated that all Indian pilots involved in the operation had returned safely. Indian authorities remain firm that the crisis was managed without external mediation and that Trump’s version of events does not align with facts on the ground.
IANS