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2019 Balakot airstrike

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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...

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