Pakistan Air Force: "Silent killer" of Indian Rafale jets Generals unhappy with Modi

The Pakistani newspaper Dawn published an article by Abyan Amir dedicated to the Indo-Pakistani confrontation. Caliber.Az offers its audience an adapted version of the piece.

This military confrontation took place after New Delhi, without evidence, blamed Islamabad for backing terrorists who killed 26 tourists in occupied Kashmir’s Pahalgam and launched a series of airstrikes on different Pakistani cities.  

The Pakistan Air Force took down six Indian jets, including three advanced French Rafale planes, one Su-30MKI, one Mirage 2000 and one MiG-29 within 40 minutes.

India’s Chief of Defence Staff General Anil Chauhan’s recent admission that his country’s fighter jets were shot down by Pakistan during the escalation has been termed a “veiled criticism of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s policies” by an expert.

In an interview with Bloomberg at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, General Chauhan had said, “I think what is important is not the jets being downed but why the jets were shot down.”

Speaking to Dawn.com about the Indian general’s comments, Ejaz Haider, Senior Resident Fellow at the Centre for Security, Strategy and Policy Research, said: “The Bloomberg interview by India’s chief of defence staff appears to be an attempt by India’s military to push back against a policy by the Hindutva political leadership to use the Pakistan card for domestic political reasons.”

He added that as a professional military leader, Gen Chauhan was aware of capabilities and shortcomings and realised that India had no overwhelming advantage against Pakistan.

“He also understands that Narendra Modi’s policy is escalatory and dangerous,” the analyst continued.

Haider said it was important to note how the Indian general conveyed his message. “He was asked if a plane was shot down. He could have circumvented the question by saying that combat entails losses, and India achieved its objectives by striking targets inside Pakistan.”

Haider recalled how the question was tackled by India’s Director-General of Air Operations, Air Marshal AK Bharti. Addressing a press conference, Air Mar­shal Bharti said, “Losses are a part of any combat scenario”. However, he said all Indian pilots “were back”.

Instead, Chauhan spoke of fighter losses in the plural and kept up the plural in the follow-up question, too,” Haider remarked.

The Indian chief of defence staff had also said the armed forces were quick to analyse the “tactical mistakes”, remedy them, and again target Pakistan on May 8 and May 10. Speaking on the Indian general’s admission that the IAF flew their jets again on May 10, after two days, Haider said: “This is a remarkable confession and could not be inadvertent. He went on to say that IAF did not fly for two days, until May 10, when they scrambled outside the PAF’s engagement envelope. This admission is significant because for two days, the Indian defences were without air cover, and that allowed the PAF to send in their fighter jets on the 10th to take out the Indian S-400’s [air defence system] cheeseboard radar.”

He further explained that even on May 10, when India targeted Pakistani bases, the Indian jets flew outside the range of PAF’s fighter aircraft after the “silent kills” they had faced at the hands of the PAF on the night of May 6-7.

“He (Chauhan) is already been accused of going beyond his remit by Hindutva-affiliated journalists, who have called for disciplinary action against him,” he continued.

Western military experts had also kept a close eye on the outcome of this aerial confrontation with a particular focus on how Chinese weaponry was battle-tested by the Pakistani armed forces, coming out on top against the French-made Rafale, which is at the cutting edge of Nato’s weapon arsenal.

Siemon Wezeman, a senior researcher at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute told the British newspaper The Guardian that “Any state producing or buying weapons is keen to see how the product does in real conflict. Tests and exercises can tell most about capabilities of weapons, but the ultimate test is often combat.”

Similarly, Andrew Small, a Berlin-based senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund, was quoted as saying that the Pakistan-India aerial combat provided the weapon’s suppliers a chance to assess the performance of their weaponry.

Chairman of the Pakistan People's Party Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, speaking about the clash, told reporters on June 3 that Pakistan could have potentially shot down more Indian jets but exercised restraint during the response to the attack by New Delhi.

Plethora of evidence

Even before the Indian top general’s confirmation, there was a plethora of evidence to establish the veracity of Pakistan’s claims, which were confirmed by different sources. American and French officials had also earlier confirmed that Pakistan shot down an Indian jet using fighter aircraft it acquired from China.

Earlier in the month, the American newspaper The Washington Post also verified visual evidence that at least two French-made Indian fighter aircraft were shot down by the Pakistan Air Force. The paper based its findings on analyses by former US Army explosive ordnance disposal technician Trevor Ball, Etienne Marcuz, an associate fellow at the Foundation for Strategic Research and an anonymous French air power expert.

Separately, Al Jazeera reported on the morning of May 7, after the clash, that three fighter jets had crashed in Indian Occupied Kashmir.

By Khagan Isayev