Pakistani News stations reporting shelling or air strikes across the International Border at Fort Abbas, near Bahawalpur, Pakistan.

We’ll find out soon enough. But there should be no surprises.

Let’s wait for dust to down?

With creative imagination such as ”Indian missiles went through the building roof, there was no damage to the buildings, but a very large number of terrorists went poof”, dust is unlikely to settle anytime soon.

Forgive a naive question, but the Indian PM implied today that India missed not having Rafale in its inventory. In the wake of a little skirmish with PAF, which is both qualitatively & quantitatively inferior to the IAF, and the fact that IAF has always claimed they can hold their own in a two front war, I find this remark very bizarre. Had he mentioned LCA, it would have made sense. But Rafale? Could Rafale have made that much difference when IAF is operating vastly superior aircrafts to those in PAF. Or has Modi started another one of his political games and using the current war hysteria in india to build his case for more Rafales and at the same time thwart Congress’s accusations vis-a-vis this deal?

With all due respect, 5 years ago members at Keydef would also not have been been posting iMessage chat screenshots as some sort of corroborating evidence or just posting easy to demonstrate false claims from twitter/facebook and the likes. Objectivity went out of the window long ago as far as this thread and the IAF threat are concerned when it comes to this particular conflict as many on both sides of this debate tried to somehow justify claims and counterclaims without investing any significant effort to verifying its veracity in the first place. How many pages did we dedicate to trying to show that different angles of the MiG-21 crash site did not transform those images to those of an F-16 crash site? In a way these threads are mirror images of what is going on social media which is unfortunate given that this is a forum where the level of debate and discussion should be at a higher, and more technical level given that we are a self selected group of aerospace and defense enthusiasts or professionals.

Blind nationalism seems to have overcome objectivity. Experts, professional or not, rarely dare question notions which they know not to be true. If someone does, he/she is likely to be ridiculed. Masses seem scared of reality because it is difficult to control, but in digital world people have more control, they can create a reality of their choosing, and surround themselves of like-minded people. It is called escapism. I dare any of internet warriors, itching for a war, to go and spend a week on either side of the LOC this week. Hats off to those hundreds of thousands who live there, risk their lives on daily basis, but I cannot imagine many of them wanting a war.

I wonder if the anchor is still unconvinced!

In civilised world, one such disaster on live TV would have ruined a journalist’s reputation. But now that we are sailing through unchartered territory of modern internet, where it is the armchair internet warriors pushing for war between two nuclear armed neighbours, perhaps the same principle no longer applies.

One thing is pretty clear though. Our internet warriors are good at finding counter arguments to anything and everything. Recently I came across a plethora of reasons as to why superior IAF fighter, equipped with modern 4+ generation equipment and BVRAAM did not wreak havoc amongst inferior Pakistani strike package that struck across the LoC. My favourite amongst these was that civil airliners were operating on the Pakistani side, so IAF did not take the risk. Noe I wonder if this is why Pak CAA decided to open its airspace for commercial flights so that IAF cannot use BVRAAM in case of further escalation. On a side note, current satellite imagery analysis is not helping official Indian claims of a very large number of terrorists dead. We are awaiting official Indian proof of that claim, but if we don’t get one soon, I have no doubt our internet warriors will come up with something, and as long as fits within what people want to believe, it will be acceptable regardless of how far fetched the idea is.

The last few days have given a great opportunity to the observers to study the human psyche in modern era, and I am sure we will see articles about it in near future.

From what I have seen, it seems Indian govt has handed over its PR responsibility to an incendiary media, which gives the govt an option of plausible deniability. IAF claimed success of the initial strikes and then claimed to thwart PAF’s attempt to bomb military targets. Do we have any details? From what I know, there is very little from official sources. As BlackArcher alluded to in an earlier post, it was the Indian foreign secretary Gokhale who claimed the killing of a very large number of terrorists in the aerial strike. But what does a very large number mean? 10, 20, 1000? This reminds me of IAF chief’s claim of detecting J-20 from several km (5, 10, 100?) with everyone turning this several into what they wished it to be, e.g. at a distance where an IAF fighter would be able to lock and fire a missile comfortably. Anyway, then we had an anonymous source who mentioned the figure of 300 terrorists dead. All of a sudden everyone jumped on the bandwagon, and I heard some retired army general giving a figure of 500-550, when one included terrorists’ cooks, servants etc (this reminded me of General Hamid Gul’s claims prior to US invasion of Afghanistan even though Ameticans are talking to Taliban now). Now let’s take a look at Pakistani aerial strike across the loc. How long did it take IAF to hold a press conference, where the AF briefer read from a few pre-written notes and didn’t answer much apart from the question about possible downing of F-16? Now compare that with Pulwama attacks. How long did it take Indian govt to accuse Pakistan of being behind the attack? 1 hour, 2, 4? Looking at these events and various others, it seems rather plausible that Modi govt is trying to extend this whole saga as close to the elections as possible to gain maximum benefit. Their performance in recent state elections showed that a BJP win was no longer guaranteed. In fact many observers in Pakistani media had expressed their concerns about an attack in india before elections. I am sure there must be alternative theories that can explain these events, and I am open to those.

​The most disappointing thing, however, is that in world’s largest democracy, there are very few who are bothering to ask these legitimate questions. Indians have proven themselves to be great analysts and capable of critical thinking. Looking through the last few pages in this thread shows that clearly. They question everything and anything. So why they have not been able to apply that sort of critical thinking to their own govt stance? One possible answer came today in the shape of Mr Modi’s attack on some Indian opposition parties who dared question govt stance. Apparently those parties are aiding Pakistan and terrorists through such questions. While I can imagine something like this happening in a controlled state such as Pakistan, this from the PM of the world’s largest secular democracy, who is seeking re-election in a couple of months, was an eye opener indeed. In fact the last 5 years of Modi govt have been an eye opener for a person with a background in science, but that is a debate for another day.

Having said this, at least one good thing has come out of it. IAF has provided the proof of operational deployment of JF-17, and now people can provide a link to that press conference whenever video proof is demanded by some critical thinker.

From the pictures of his capture and video of him in the Pak Army jeep after capture it seems he did not have any injury apart from the bleeding on the face. He was walking unaided.

I agree with you (though I did not pay much attention to those videos). It was something I had read/seen, and wanted it out in public domain in case something like this does come up. It may have been someone who heard a rumour, and people do tend to associate such things to themselves in times like this.

Edited: just found that article. It is a BBC article quoting someone by the name of Razaq Chaudry, a local involved in the capture of the IAF pilot, claiming his nephew had shot him in the leg. If this turns out not to be the case, it will also show how reliable locals’ ppinions can be when it comes to things like this (almost like Chinese whispers).

Sure, but isn’t he saying where the other 2 chutes landed? At least 1 over the border according to him?

He talks about three chutes and where they landed. But it is difficult to decipher what he says about the landing of the other two chutes.

Now that WC Abhinandan will be handed to India, there is something else I wanted to pre-empt. I have seen a video/article where an eye witness talking about the captured pilot mentions his nephew shooting him in his leg. I’ll try to dig it out and post it here. The only reason I’m posting this here is in case Abhinandan was actually shot, and Indian media soon the story and accuses ISI of doing so.