India, Pakistan down each other’s jets as Kashmir conflict heats up

ISLAMABAD/NEW DELHI (Reuters): India and Pakistan both said they shot down each other’s fighter jets yesterday, a day after Indian warplanes struck inside Pakistan for the first time since a 1971 war, prompting world powers to urge restraint.

Both countries have ordered airstrikes over the last two days, the first time in history that two nuclear-armed powers have done so, while ground forces have exchanged fire in more than a dozen locations.

Tension has been elevated since a suicide car bombing by Pakistan-based militants in Indian-controlled Kashmir killed at least 40 Indian paramilitary police on 14 February, 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 called for talks with India and hoped “better sense” would prevail so that both sides could deescalate.

“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 targeted the Jaish-e-Mohammed (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, two over the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir, and went to the brink of a fourth after a Pakistani militant attack on India’s Parliament in 2001.

The latest escalation marks a sudden turnaround in relations between the two countries that both claim Kashmir in full but rule in part. As recently as November, Pakistan’s Khan spoke of “mending ties” with India.

US 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 in a statement yesterday.

“I also encouraged both ministers to prioritise direct communication and avoid further military activity,” he said.

Both China and the EU have also called for restraint.

Many of the facts in the latest series of engagements are disputed by the two sides.

Pakistan armed forces spokesman Major General Asif Ghafoor said two Indian jets had been shot down after they entered Pakistani airspace while responding to a Pakistani aerial mission on targets in Indian-controlled Kashmir.

One of the jets crashed on the Indian-controlled side of the de facto border in Kashmir, known as the Line of Control, and the other on the Pakistani side and two Indian pilots had been captured, he said.

Ghafoor said the Pakistani aircraft had carried out the strikes in response to India’s airstrike the day before, but had taken deliberate action to ensure no casualties were caused.

The Pakistani jets had locked on to six targets, in a demonstration of their capacity to hit strategic installations, but deliberately fired into open spaces where there would be no casualties.

“This was not a retaliation in true sense, but to tell Pakistan has capability, we can do it, but we want to be responsible, we don’t want an escalation, we don’t want a war,” Ghafoor told a news conference.

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 added.

India’s foreign ministry spokesman Raveesh Kumar gave a different account, telling a news briefing that the Pakistan airstrikes on military targets had been “foiled”.

India shot down one Pakistani plane that landed in Pakistani territory, and that it had lost one of its own planes, not two, with the pilot “missing in action”, Kumar added.

“Pakistan has claimed that he is in their custody. We are ascertaining the facts,” Kumar said.

Pakistan denies it lost a plane in the encounter.

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 is bloodied and blindfolded, gives his name and service number, before telling a man questioning him: “I’m sorry sir, that’s all I’m supposed to tell you.”

The Indian air force has ordered Kashmir’s main airport in Srinagar along with at least three others in neighbouring states to close, an official said.

Pakistan shut its airspace, with commercial flights in the country cancelled. Flights from the Middle East and India were also affected.

In a separate incident, police officials in Indian-occupied Kashmir said that four passengers and a civilian had died after an Indian aircraft crashed in Kashmir. The craft was initially reported by officials to be a plane, but a partial tail number from the craft seen by a Reuters witness showed it to be a Mi17 military helicopter.

The cause of the crash was unknown. The aerial engagement followed overnight artillery fire by both sides. Pakistan used heavy calibre weapons in 12 to 15 places along the Line of Control, a spokesman for the Indian defence forces said yesterday.

“The Indian Army retaliated for effect and our focused fire resulted in severe destruction to five posts and number of casualties,” the spokesman said.

“Five Indian soldiers suffered minor wounds in the shelling that ended on Wednesday morning,” he added. “So far there are no (civilian) casualties but there is panic among people,” said Indian side Poonch district deputy commissioner Rahul Yadav where some of the shelling took place.

“We have an evacuation plan in place and if need arises we will evacuate people to safer areas,” he said.

Officials on the Pakistani side said at least four people had been killed and seven wounded, including civilians, with thousands evacuated and schools closed in border areas.

“Only those families are still here which have concrete bunkers built within or along their homes,” said Chakothi resident Muhammad Din a village in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir near the de facto border.

India has also continued its crackdown on suspected militants operating in Kashmir, and yesterday security forces killed two Jaish militants in a gun battle, Indian police said.

Indian-occupied Kashmir government hospital superintendent Syed Maqsood said that all hospitals in the region had been asked to paint a red cross on their roofs.

Pakistan PM urges talks with India to end crisis, avoid miscalculation