ISLAMABAD/WASH­ING­TON: As a report of the US Foreign Policy magazine contradicted India’s claim of shooting down an F-16 fighter jet of Pakistan during a dogfight amid heightened tension following the Pulwama attack, Pakistan’s military on Friday asked New Delhi to speak the truth.

The prominent American magazine, which published the report on its website on Thursday, also notes that using an F-16 in a dogfight does not violate the end-use agreement that Pakistan signed while receiving the aircraft from the US.

Maj Gen Asif Ghafoor, director general of the Inter-Services Public Relations, said on Friday that all four ‘missile seeker heads’ were recovered intact from the wreckage of Indian Mig21 plane, implying that they were never fired.

ISPR tells New Delhi to speak the truth, releases photo of all four ‘missile seeker heads’ recovered intact from the wreckage of Indian Mig21 plane

He published a picture of the four ‘missile seeker heads’ with a message on Twitter, “IAF claim of hitting F-16 by their Mig 21 before having been shot down by PAF gets exposed. All 4 missile seeker heads recovered intact from the wreckage & held. Pakistan and its professional Armed Forces staying humble by not drum beating. We have more truth on this to share.”

In an earlier tweet, he said: “Allah be praised, truth always prevails. Time for India to speak truth about false claims & actual losses on their side including the second aircraft shot down by Pakistan. India needs introspection especially over atrocities in IOK [India-held Kashmir]. Region needs peace, progress & prosperity.”

FP interviewed two US defence officials with “knowledge of the count” and both confirmed that all the F-16s were “present and accounted for”.

“It would be incredibly naive for us to believe that we could sell some type of equipment to Pakistan that they would not intend to use in a fight,” one of them added.

The officials also said that Pakistan had invited the US to do the count after India claimed that its air force had shot down an F-16 fighter jet during a dogfight on Feb 27.

An end-user agreement, signed when the foreign military sale was finalised, allows the US to do such counts.

Indian media reported that before the Indian plane was shot down and its pilot captured by Pakistani forces, an Indian Air Force (IAF) MiG-21 Bison had shot down a PAF F-16 aircraft.

Pakistan had rubbished the Indian reports, explaining that two aircraft did indeed go down, but both belonged to India. One crashed on Pakistani soil, while the other managed to return to India-held Kashmir.

Direct contradiction

“A US count of Pakistan’s F-16 fleet has found that all the jets are present and accounted for, a direct contradiction to India’s claim that it shot down one of the fighter jets during a February clash,” FP’s Lara Seligman reported.

The US officials who spoke to the magazine explained that some aircraft were not immediately available for inspection after the Pakistan-India back-and-forth, so it took US personnel a few weeks to account for all the jets.

India also complained that the PAF used F-16s to target Indian military installations after crossing the Line of Control. As “proof” a piece of missile was shown, which Indian media insisted could only have been fired by a Pakistani F-16.

New Delhi insisted that this was a violation of Islamabad’s sales agreement with Washington. The US State Department, however, refused to take a position on India’s complaint.

The Foreign Policy report addressed this issue as well. “Evidence suggests that Pakistan’s F-16s were involved in the battle. The remnants of a US-made AIM-120 air-to-air missile was found near the site; out of all the aircraft involved, only the F-16 can shoot such a weapon,” Ms Seligman wrote.

The first US defence official who spoke to FP said the agreement did not involve any terms limiting the use of the F-16s.

An associate professor of political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Vipin Narang, told Foreign Policy that although the news likely will not affect Indian voters, it may affect Delhi’s dealings with Pakistan in the future.

“As details come out, it looks worse and worse for the Indians,” Narang said. “It looks increasingly like India failed to impose significant costs on Pakistan, but lost a plane and a helicopter of its own in the process.”

Tensions between India and Pakistan escalated after a suicide-bombing killed 40 Indian troops in Pulwama, India-held Kashmir, on Feb 14. India accused a Pakistan-based militant group of orchestrating the attack, but ignored increasingly clear evidence of local involvement.

Soon after the attack, Indian planes bombed a site in Balakot, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and declared that it was Jaish-e-Mohammed training camp and that Indian planes had killed 350 militants as well. India, however, failed to substantiate its assertions as the targeted area turned out to be a remote village with no sign of a training camp.

Within 24 hours, Pakistan Air Force retaliated and downed a MiG-21 in an aerial combat and captured its pilot, who was handed over to India on March 1 as a goodwill gesture.

Published in Dawn, April 6th, 2019