Terrorist attack in Kashmir - 44 jawans dead

[Atithee]

It would be a master stoke to create so much unrest in Pakistan without doing anything. Their government would have to save face despite nothing really happening, if it indeed were the case. If nothing, this is the only time I’ve seen all of India united in a really long time.

[Omkara]

It would be a master stoke to create so much unrest in Pakistan without doing anything. Their government would have to save face despite nothing really happening, if it indeed were the case. If nothing, this is the only time I’ve seen all of India united in a really long time.

its a social media nightmare in India as both side are resorting to sharing fake photos and videos on twitter. No one knows the truth.

[jayakris]

There is still not an iota of evidence that we did anything and killed even a soul, is there? I guess Pakistan has given evidence pictures of some small hit.

Precisely. A few news sources have pointed out that there was a pretty large temporary exodus of all sizeable terrorist cells from anywhere near the border after the attack on the jawans, so this seems like empty saber rattling.

Balakot is not near the border, it is at least 50-60 KM away from LOC and there are other reports which say that many terrorists were moved there in last few days as Pakistan did not expect us to strike that deep in their territory.

This is true. They thought that we would only violate the LOC, and so moved much of the terrorists back into Pakistan territory, beyond POK. They never expected that we would be able to go that for unscathed. We probably can go even further, actually, because our AWACS and radar jamming capabilities seem to have been upgraded quite a bit in the last 5-6 years (if the IIT-D an DRDO talk is to be believed). It does seem like Pakistan couldn't even fire a shot at us when we went 80 kms in, which is some 15-20 minutes within their airspace beyond the LOC and some 30 minutes from when warnings should start that jets are heding towards Pak. So the talk about our updated technological capabilities seems to be right. I never knew that we could send 12 planes in that far for that long and not even get shot at! Mind you, they cannot even come 10-15 kms across the LOC or other border before our jets would intercept and fire at them.

So, ours is not empty sabre-rattling, from a capability standpoint. The only thing I want to know is whether our human intelligence from within Pakistan is correct, that there were going to be a lot of people at the Balakot facility that we hit. Was there really 325 people and did they all die? Sounds less than believable that 2 or 3 bombs at a facility can inflict 325 deaths... It would also be difficult for news not to trickle out of Pakistan hospitals if we really killed that many. Their families will talk, you know. If no news on that comes out soon, I will have to remain skeptical.

Bit there is no question that we have scared Pakistan out of their wits right now, as they see that we can go in and hit a lot of their camps if we want.

[sameerph]

Yes, 325 looks a very high number and not sure if that can be confirmed anywhere or anytime. I do not think there will be any talk from their family of terrorists too.

[jayakris]

Yes, 325 looks a very high number and not sure if that can be confirmed anywhere or anytime. I do not think there will be any talk from their family of terrorists too.

The question is - is there proof on ANYBODY being killed by that attack? I am beginning to be very doubtful now, as is everybody in the international press/media. Nobody seems to believe what the Indian government is saying. Things just don't add up. Except to prove that we can fly deep into Pakistan without their having a clue about it, we may have accomplished nothing much else. But we will wait and see, I guess.

[Sin Hombre]

Yes, 325 looks a very high number and not sure if that can be confirmed anywhere or anytime. I do not think there will be any talk from their family of terrorists too.

The question is - is there proof on ANYBODY being killed by that attack? I am beginning to be very doubtful now, as is everybody in the international press/media. Nobody seems to believe what the Indian government is saying. Things just don't add up. Except to prove that we can fly deep into Pakistan without their having a clue about it, we may have accomplished nothing much else. But we will wait and see, I guess.

We have managed to get at least one (possibly two) jets shot down by the Pakistanis.

Only success is managing domestic optics but it appears to be a complete botched job.

[jayakris]

We have managed to get at least one (possibly two) jets shot down by the Pakistanis. Only success is managing domestic optics but it appears to be a complete botched job.

Not a "complete" botched job. Either poor intelligence on there being people at that compound (even then, I wonder how a handful of standard bombs would be enough to take them out), or simply poor accuracy in bombing. On the other hand, a big success in proving our ability able to fly all the way there without any interception by Pakistan, in terms of being able to fire at us. So much so that Pakistan is still shell-shocked about it. The proof is that they still have all domestic aircrafts grounded and their air space closed for an extra day, while we opened ours after a 3-hour closure at just the border area. Pakistan will scramble to upgrade their airspace warning systems, though, so maybe we shouldn't have revealed our capability. That is, unless we have evidence that we did hit people.

[RohitG]

We might have no proof at all. Two incidents happen for which the talk on the social media, especially twitter is we don't have any proof while the other side has captured one of our pilots and have evidence of wreckage. Not just are they using this to boast about their forces, but in the same breath they are appealing for de-escalation. This was a classic good cop, bad cop routine. The reason for lack of proof is simple. Both the "hits" and "misses" have occurred on their side of the border. There were reports that the whole camp was cordoned off and no media was allowed in the first half of the day to visit that place. After cleanup, they will obviously invite everyone to see what's happened. Why would any country admit to have terrorists killed by third party-> admit that there indeed was a camp in their territory. If nothing happened, why would they send a formation of multiple jets, including F16s to cross our territory? Was it just an expensive show of strength or was it a response dictated under pressure by all entities in their nation? Unfortunately for us, the pilot landed across the LOC and so did theirs, hence it was a case where they had to revise their number from 2 to 1 later in the day because the other guy was their own. There are multiple media reports from their side who have spoken to locals and one can logically deduce what has happened. And of course, after this the psychological warfare being perpetrated through social media has spiraled out of control wherein half of them boast about this incident while the other half demands a dialogue. Let that sink in, they crossed LOC after claiming that nothing happened the previous day and now use one of our pilots as a bargaining chip to bat for peace. While mass populace is affected by chain of events and has no evidence from GOI, is further affected by the lack of unity within our own politcians and more importantly within our own media houses.

[jayakris]

Well, I am only disputing whether there were 325 people there. I do NOT believe the number. Impossible for even Pakistan to cover up the death of that many people. Maybe we killed some 20-30 people, easy enough to cover up and clean up. If 325 people were killed, it needs dropping massive ammunition on a building and causing utter destruction that they cannot clean up easily. Normally if 325 people are killed, some 300-500 people would need to get injured, and that could not be covered up by Pakistan (they are not going to prevent bringing injured people to hospitals for covering-up reasons, and cannot cover up such a disaster). We didn't use that kind of bombs, based on our own admission.

I wish we had not given the figure of 325. That is all at dispute. If we have any kind of night-vision video or pictures of a hit, we should release it, and I will let go of their exaggerations on the number. To me it looks like we did hit some building and killed a few people, but few enough for Pakistan to cover up.

[SaniaFan]

Indian Air Force in their official briefing today clarified that it is premature to say what was the of number of casualties. They said that achieved their mission. We have credible evidence regarding the mission and it is for the government to decide when to show it.
So this appears to be more appropriate statement. I wonder from where did the 325 people theory came.

[jayakris]

I was following it closely, as I'm in India right now, and I know that all the news outlets and national newspapers rather simultaneously released the numbers 2 days ago from "official sources" to be over 300 (or about 300, or up to 350). So it was clearly a planned leak from a govt source that all the news outlets trust.

The only official statement, before the clarification by the air chief a little while ago this evening, was from 2 days ago by foreign secretary Vijay Gokhale who said "a large number of terrorists, trainers, senior commanders, and groups of Jihadis were eliminated". The word "large number" is significant there. He also said that the place is headed by Yousuf Azhar, the BIL of Masoud Azhar. But many TV news outlets immediately twisted it as "Yousuf Azhar was killed". He didnt quite say that.

What is interesting is that there is no news from Pakistan that says that Yousuf Azhar is alive and kicking, which would have made our official mentioning of him a bit silly. Knowing the usual Pakistani style of doing things, I would expect them to do that if he were alive. Not yet, at least. That makes me think that we probably did hit and eliminate some few like him in a specific building or something. That would fit with the military clarification this evening that we hit what we wanted to hit.

I saw some Kashmir newspapers mention that 25-30 people may have been hit. That is pretty good, if we did that.

[arjun2761]

Shooting down their F-16 is also a good story. While this discussion is going on, hope we have a couple more surprises planned. I'd rather have the Pakistani snakes hiding in their holes rather than planning their next attack (which we know they are doing...).

[jayakris]

Well, I am only disputing whether there were 325 people there. I do NOT believe the number. Impossible for even Pakistan to cover up the death of that many people. Maybe we killed some 20-30 people, easy enough to cover up and clean up. If 325 people were killed, it needs dropping massive ammunition on a building and causing utter destruction that they cannot clean up easily. Normally if 325 people are killed, some 300-500 people would need to get injured, and that could not be covered up by Pakistan (they are not going to prevent bringing injured people to hospitals for covering-up reasons, and cannot cover up such a disaster). We didn't use that kind of bombs, based on our own admission.

Looks like my guess is what happened. Reports beginning to trickle out that a Jihad camp was indeed hit, and that some 30 bodies were taken to hospitals. Indian jets hit school of jihad, says Azhar’s brother in audio (Times of India)

Also, I had wondered...

What is interesting is that there is no news from Pakistan that says that Yousuf Azhar is alive and kicking, which would have made our official mentioning of him a bit silly. Knowing the usual Pakistani style of doing things, I would expect them to do that if he were alive. Not yet, at least. That makes me think that we probably did hit and eliminate some few like him in a specific building or something. That would fit with the military clarification this evening that we hit what we wanted to hit.

Now it seems like Yousuf Azhar may have indeed got killed. If they brought out Masoud's brother, why haven't the brother in law himself come out in the open? Very interesting. Everything now looks like the Indian military did pretty much what our Government said they did. The only issue was the 300+ number that the media made up (at best probably prodded by an overzealous Government "source"). Nothing that has come in official statements from our government seems to be made up. This looks more and more like a pretty damn good operation by India to me. This is great!