The 2019 Balakot airstrike was a bombing raid conducted by Indian warplanes on 26 February 2019 in Balakot, Pakistan, against an alleged training camp of the terrorist group Jaish-e-Mohammed. Open source satellite imagery revealed that no targets of consequence were hit. The following day, Pakistan shot down an Indian warplane and took its pilot, Abhinandan Varthaman, prisoner. Indian anti-aircraft fire accidentally downed an Indian helicopter killing six airmen on board and one civilian on the ground, their deaths receiving little or no coverage in the Indian media, and remaining officially unacknowledged until seven months later.
India claimed it had downed a Pakistani F-16 fighter. Defence and military analysts found India's evidence to be circumstantial, its claim discredited by the absence of the required US Department of Defense announcement about the loss, and a leak by department officials of the satisfactory enumeration of these aircraft in Pakistan. The airstrike was used by India's ruling party to bolster its patriotic appeal in the general elections of April 2019.
The airstrike was conducted by India in the early morning of 26 February when Indian warplanes crossed the de facto border in the disputed region of Kashmir and dropped bombs in the vicinity of the town of Balakot in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in Pakistan. Quote: "Pakistan, ... said the war planes made it up to five miles inside its territory" Pakistan's military, the first to announce the airstrike in the morning of 26 February, Quote: "Pakistan, which was the first to announce the incursion, ..." described the Indian planes as dropping their payload in an uninhabited wooded hilltop area near Balakot. Quote: "A spokesman for Pakistan's armed forces, Maj. Gen. Asif Ghafoor, on Tuesday posted on Twitter four images of a forested area pockmarked with small craters and debris, which he said was the site of Indian airstrikes." India, confirming the airstrike later the same day, characterized it to be a preemptive strike directed against a terrorist training camp, and causing the deaths of a "large number" of terrorists. Satellite imagery analyzed by the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensics Laboratory, Quote: "Indian fighter jets carried out strikes against targets inside undisputed Pakistani territory, but open-source evidence suggested that the strike was unsuccessful." Reuters, Quote: "The images produced by Planet Labs Inc, a San Francisco-based private satellite operator, show at least six buildings on the madrasa site on March 4, six days after the airstrike. ... There are no discernible holes in the roofs of buildings, no signs of scorching, blown-out walls, displaced trees around the madrasa or other signs of an aerial attack." European Space Imaging, Quote: "... said managing director Adrian Zevenbergen. '... The image captured with Worldiew-2 of the buildings in question shows no evidence of a bombing having occurred. There are no signs of scorching, no large distinguishable holes in the roofs of buildings and no signs of stress to the surrounding vegetation.' " and the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, Quote: "But India's recent air strike on a purported Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorist camp in Balakot in Pakistan on 26 February suggests that precision strike is still an art and science that requires both practice and enabling systems to achieve the intended effect. Simply buying precision munitions off the shelf is not enough." has concluded that India did not hit any targets of significance on the Jaba hilltop site in the vicinity of Balakot. Quote: " Open-source satellite imagery suggests India did not hit any targets of consequence in the airstrikes it conducted after the terrorist attack on the paramilitaries. Quote: "Analysis of open-source satellite imagery has also cast doubt on India's claims. A report by the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab was able to geolocate the site of the attack and provide a preliminary damage assessment. It compared satellite images from the days before and after India's strike and concluded there were only impacts in the wooded areas with no damage visible to surrounding structures."
The following day on 27 February, in a tit-for-tat airstrike, Quote: The two days of tit-for-tat airstrikes ... the first since 1971, were triggered by a 14 Feb terrorist bombing in Indian-controlled Kashmir that killed 40 Indian security personnel." Pakistan retaliated, Quote: "A day after India's strike, Pakistan retaliated, sending planes to attack military installations in India." causing an Indian warplane to be shot down and its pilot to be taken prisoner by the Pakistan military before being returned on 1 March. An Indian Mi-17 helicopter was brought down by friendly fire in which all six airmen on board were killed; this was acknowledged by India on 4 October 2019. The airstrikes were the first time since the India-Pakistan war of 1971 that warplanes of either country crossed the Line of Control and also since both states became nuclear powers. On 10 April 2019, 47 days after the airstrike, some international journalists, who were taken to the Jaba hilltop in a tightly controlled trip arranged by Pakistani government, found the largest building of the site to show no evidence of damage or recent rebuilding. Quote: "Those visiting the site on Wednesday didn't see any signs that there had been significant building work to either clear structures or erect new ones. And the vegetation didn't appear to have suffered the stress that might be expected from a missile attack." Quote: "They were given access to an Islamic school in Balakot, where Indian media say militants were killed in retaliation for an attack in Kashmir. The large building appeared to be fully intact ..." Quote: "International outlets which visited the Indian air strike site in Pakistan found no evidence of a major terrorist training camp – or of any infrastructure damage at all." Quote: "One thing is clear: India's claim that it destroyed a militant training camp and killed more than 300 extremists cannot be backed up by the evidence. More than a month after India launched airstrikes inside Pakistan in retaliation for a militant attack that killed 40 paramilitary troops in Kashmir, foreign media have been allowed to see the areas hit."
Background
The Kashmir insurgency has been occurring since 1989, but a new wave of violence was witnessed during 2016 when Burhan Wani then commander of Hizbul Mujahideen was killed in an encounter. In 2018, more than 500 people (including civilians, soldiers and militants) were killed in the violence.Kashmir: Why India and Pakistan fight over it , BBC News On 14 February 2019, a convoy of vehicles carrying security personnel on the Jammu–Srinagar National Highway was attacked by a vehicle-borne suicide bomber at Lethpora in the Pulwama district, Jammu and Kashmir, India. The attack resulted in the deaths of 46 Central Reserve Police Force personnel and the attacker. The perpetrator of the attack was from Indian-administered Kashmir.India Blames Pakistan for Attack in Kashmir, Promising a Response , New York Times. 15 February 2019. Quote:The militant who claimed responsibility for the attack, Aadil Ahmad Dar, was from a village about six miles from where the Indian convoy was struck, in contrast to the fighters and weapons that once streamed in from Pakistani-occupied areas to sustain the insurgency. And the explosives he packed into his car appear to have been locally procured, security experts said. The responsibility for the attack was claimed by the Pakistan-based Islamist militant group Jaish-e-Mohammed.Pulwama Attack 2019, everything about J&K terror attack on CRPF by terrorist Adil Ahmed Dar, Jaish-eMohammad , India Today, 16 February 2019. Pakistan condemned the attack, and denied any connection to it.
The airstrike occurred ahead of the 2019 Indian general election.Tensions Between India and Pakistan Are at Their Highest Point in Decades. Here's What to Know, TIME. On 19 February, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan attributed Indian government's desire to attack Pakistan to the upcoming election. The Indian government rejected the allegation.
Incident On 26 February 2019, Pakistan announced the intrusion of Indian aircraft into its airspace, but asserted that the Indian fleet was intercepted, causing them to retreat, to release their bombs which hit an open area, and to dump their fuel. In a press briefing, Pakistan's Director-General Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), Major General Asif Ghafoor, stated that three IAF teams were spotted approaching the Pakistan border from various sectors in early on 26 February. He added that the two of these teams did not cross the border following a challenge from Pakistani aircraft flying combat air patrol, but the third one crossed the Line of Control from the Kiran Valley near Muzaffarabad before being intercepted by Pakistani Air Force (PAF) jets within three minutes of the incursion.
Later on 26 February 2019, India confirmed the airstrike, stating that the Indian Air Force conducted them in retaliation to the Pulwama attack. The strikes were subsequently claimed to be "non-military" and "preemptive'' in nature; targeting a Jaish-e-Mohammed facility within Pakistan as part of its "Operation Bandar".
The airstrike was the first time since the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 that attacking warplanes had crossed the Line of Control.
Indian media claimed to have confirmed from official sources that twelve Mirage 2000 jets were involved in the operation. The Indian Express further reported that the Mirage 2000s were carrying SPICE 2000 and Popeye precision-guided munitions and that they were supported by four Sukhoi Su-30MKI, Netra and Phalcon airborne early warning and control aircraft, an IAI Heron UAV and two Ilyushin Il-78 aerial refuelling aircraft. Furthermore, Indian officials claim that four SU-30MKIs were launched from their South Punjab base and headed towards Jodhpur and on to Barmer, Rajasthan before turning West towards Jaish-e-Mohammed headquarters in Pakistan located in the populous town of Bahawalpur. These four aircraft, tasked as decoys, successfully drew PAF fighters way south of the main attack force.
After releasing the bombs, the jets returned into Indian airspace unharmed and the Indian media claimed that whilst Pakistan scrambled its F-16 jets, they could not engage the Indian planes. Retired PAF Air Marshall Masood Akhtar opined that the air forces of both countries may have been instructed not to attack each other to avoid further escalation of conflict.
Target There has been ambiguity among the sources as to what the exact target was, and about whether the madrasa – Taleem ul-Quran run by Masood Azhar's brother-in-law, Muhammad Yusuf Azhar (involved in the hijacking of Indian Airlines Flight 814), was an active JeM camp or not.
According to a diplomatic cable leaked in 2011, a 2004 United States Department of Defense interrogation report stated that Balakot had "a training camp that offers both basic and advanced terrorist training on explosives and artillery." In contrast, military analysts asserted that whilst the area used to host militant camps, they dispersed after the 2005 Pakistan earthquake to avoid detection by the international aid groups providing relief in the area.
Indian intelligence sources claim that the camp was located in a hilltop forest, from Balakot, and that it was a resort-style facility, with space and room for 500–700 militants, including a swimming pool, cooks and cleaners. The New York Times mentioned western security officials of having doubted the existence of such large-scale training camps, asserting that Pakistan no longer runs them and that "militant groups are spread out in small groups around the country".