After the recent shooting of Indian tourists, blamed on elements in Pakistan there had been a great deal of talk about retaliation. Today, Indian jets struck targets inside Pakistan, with Pakistan confirming and stating several Indian Air Force jets had been shot down.
Was in the north of India (Jaipur, Agra, New Dehli) a week ago when the initial incident took place. Indian airport security was … well elevated, pedantic and acquiescence was a good policy.
Latest info among all the raging claims. Includes updates on ground and air casualties.
Thanks for that - while a lot of claims/counter claims, has more detailed information than most I’ve seen so far.
Unfortunate if true. Because I read that India was only going after the (supposed) terrorists within Pakistan, and not the Pakistani military.
Per @smithsb’s cite, seems to be confirmed:
Meanwhile, a French official has reportedly confirmed the loss of one of the Indian Air Force’s prized Rafale multirole fighters.
Which I take as a bit more confirmed than:
A report in The New York Times cites three officials, local news reports, and accounts of witnesses, who said that “at least two aircraft” went down in India and the Indian-controlled side of Kashmir.
But still points strongly to at least one downed aircraft.
It seemed weird somehow when some Asian official said yesterday’s action was an act of war. I must be nuts because I thought they’ve been screwing with each other since I was a kid.
They have been “screwing around with each other” for decades, ever since the Partition imposed by the British Empire.
Tensions go up and down, there’s a lot of posturing across the border, and the occasional “incident”. Tensions do seem higher right now than they have been in the recent past.
This is an ineffective, symbolic and effete response by India. Terror groups operating in Indian Kashmir are tightly guided, organized and supplied by the Pakistani military. Just blowing up some terrorist “camps” while sparing the military will do nothing to reduce the threat of terrorism from Pakistan. But India’s options are limited; this is probably a good starting point to drive home the message that terror strikes will not go unanswered.
In a short conflict, Pakistan and India are pretty evenly matched. I do not think Pakistan will escalate beyond a point. Pakistanis are not suicidal.
The Taliban are calling on India and Pakistan to exercise restraint and start dialogue, stressing its importance for regional stability.
I did not have this on my bingo card.
Yeah, when the Taliban are the folks calling for restraint…
Well, the Pakistanis scrambled their fighters during the 2011 operation to get bin Laden. So yes, unfortunately, they shield their territory even if someone’s trying to get the bad guys.
Come on. Is there any nation on Earth that would tolerate another nation conducting airstrikes within their borders, if they had the means to oppose them? It doesn’t matter what the target is. That’s the whole point of sovereignty.
Would you say the same thing if Canada decided to conduct an airstrike in Montana, against a white supremacist militia?
Apparently, Pakistan retaliated by going after Indian military infrastructure in Jammu, Rajasthan and Punjab states. That’s real stupid and a sure-fire way to start a wider war. I really hoped Pakistan would just shell border villages a little more than usual and call it a day, just as India hit some terrorist facilities and quickly disengaged.
If the US was allowing a white supremacist militia to fester on the Canadian border and to strike into Canada, with American police or military forces being dispatched to deal with the issue, Canada would be absolutely in the right if they struck those targets.
Part of being a legitimate nation-state is enforcing the state’s monopoly on violence. If you choose not to enforce this in order to allow proxy groups to strike at your enemies on your behalf, you are an aggressor, and deserve retaliation.
Yes, but that’s not the issue here. Sure, India is within its rights to attack these places, but it should come as no surprise that Pakistan shot at the planes. That’s the absolute minimum response that should have been expected. Pakistan had no way to know how extensive the attacks were going to be, and airstrikes are notoriously hard to pull off correctly. There was a non-zero chance that something other than a training camp was going to be blown up.
And this should be part of the calculation in deciding what to do - are these strikes so important that they’re worth the risk of having some of the planes shot down?
When Pakistan decided to fund and support terrorists attacking India on their border, they had to know there was a chance of retaliation. 
India losing jets in the attack is a failure, certainly; maybe they should have struck different targets or used different assets to do so. Maybe they needed to hit Pakistan’s air defences harder if they wanted to use jets in the attack; maybe they decided not to do that because striking AA assets could signal the sort of escalation that leads to nukes.
As of now there is no confirmation from India about loss of fighter jets. The only thing I have seen so far is Rafale external drop tank debris.
That was my stance yesterday - who knows if any jets were even shot down - but I saw that CNN says French intelligence confirmed that at least one Rafale was shot down.
Rafael engine nozzle assembly
Tail portion including serial number of a known Rafael fighter.
ejection seat mechanism from IAF Mig 29