WASHINGTON (Kashmir English): U.S. President Donald Trump has claimed on Friday that five fighter jets were shot down during the recent conflict between India and Pakistan. Speaking at a private dinner with Republican lawmakers, Trump discussed the situation in South Asia and said that his team helped de-escalate tensions between the two nuclear-armed neighbors.
According to Donald Trump, the India-Pakistan conflict intensified after a deadly militant attack in Pahalgam, Indian-administered Kashmir, earlier this year. Trump stated that heavy military exchanges followed, and “five jets went down,” though he did not specify which country’s aircraft were destroyed.
“Something I’m very proud of [is that] we stopped a lot of wars. A lot of wars. And these were serious, serious wars; would have been going on,” Trump said.
“You had India-Pakistan that was going, and in fact, planes were being shot out of the air. Five, five, four or five, but I think five jets were shot down actually,” Trump said while talking about the India-Pakistan hostilities, without elaborating or providing further detail.
“It was getting worse and worse, wasn’t it? […] These are two serious nuclear countries and they were hitting each other. It seems like a new form of warfare; you saw it recently, when you looked at what we did in Iran when we knocked out their nuclear capability, totally knocked out,” he said, referring to the US strikes on Iran’s three nuclear sites.
Pakistan said it downed five Indian planes in air-to-air combat, later stating that figure as six. India’s highest-ranking general said in late May that India switched tactics after suffering losses in the air on the first day of hostilities and established an advantage before a ceasefire was announced three days later.
As New Delhi launched deadly air strikes on Pakistan in early May over allegations about the Pahalgam attack, which Islamabad denied, the Pakistan Air Force downed five Indian jets in retaliation. After tit-for-tat strikes on each other’s airbases, it took American intervention on May 10 for both sides to finally reach a ceasefire.
While India claimed downing jets, Islamabad has denied any losses of planes and said it hit 26 Indian targets were hit after its three air bases were targeted.
Donald Trump has repeatedly said he prevented a “nuclear war” between Pakistan and India after Washington held talks with both sides, even crediting Chief of Army Staff Field Marshal Asim Munir for helping in it. India has differed with Trump’s claims that it resulted from his intervention and his threats to sever trade talks
Most recently, on July 7, the Donald Trump administration doubled down on its narrative of Trump playing a central role in defusing tensions, despite India claiming otherwise.
Asked about Indian officials’ repeated denials of Trump’s role, US State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce avoided taking a position. “So many comments speak for themselves,” she said.
