India loses two fighter jets in Pakistan strikes, experts confirm
India's strikes inside Pakistan - launched in retaliation for a deadly militant attack on tourists last month in Indian-administered Kashmir - were the deepest in more than half a century; mutual accusations of drone attacks and border violations in the days that followed have brought the arch-rivals to the brink of full-scale conflict.
'There's a lot of political weight being put behind the planes because neither side has yet crossed a threshold of full-scale conventional warfare,' said Sameer Lalwani, a fellow at the D.C.-based Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.
The Rafale, manufactured by the French company Dassault Aviation, is an advanced fighter aircraft first delivered to India in 2019 - one of the country's most significant purchases in recent years as it sought to modernise its air force and compete with regional powers like China.
The word 'Rafale' is stencilled in white on the vertical stabiliser in one image of the wreckage, alongside the letters 'BS 001' and an Indian flag. The markings matched those on the vertical stabiliser of an Indian air force Rafale seen in images posted online in 2021.
The Post could not independently geolocate the images of the wreckage, which were said to have been taken near the village of Akalia Khurd in Punjab, about 70km from India's border with Pakistan. But they did not appear to have been posted online before Wednesday, and local reports said Indian military authorities had responded to a crash in the area and collected the wreckage. One farmer was killed by a postcrash blast after being the first to reach the site, the Indian Express reported.
Other photos taken in Wuyan, a village in Indian-administered Kashmir about 130km from the Pakistani border, showed what all three experts agreed was an external fuel tank belonging to a Mirage 2000, an older fighter aircraft also manufactured by Dassault that entered Indian military service in the 1980s.
Fuel tanks can be jettisoned in response to a mechanical failure, combat damage or to make a jet more manoeuvrable in battle, so are not on their own proof of a crash. But just a quarter mile away, witnesses reported a plane crashing into a primary school soon after the Indian strikes began. Part of a jet engine is visible within the flaming wreckage of the school in a video posted the night of the attack, according to Ball and the French airpower expert, which suggests an aircraft went down there.
Another video posted on Facebook by the school on Thursday showed schoolgirls picking up fallen tree limbs and commentators expressing hope it would be rebuilt.
Another video, which the Post could not geolocate but which multiple accounts said was filmed near Akalia Khurd, showed an unexploded French-made Mica missile on the ground, still attached to its launcher, the experts said. Such a missile and launcher could be attached to either a Rafale or a Mirage, they said.
'These missile launch rails are attached to the aircraft, and it being on the ground, along with the large fire in the background indicates a crash likely occurred,' Ball said.
The Post identified an apparent third crash site in Akhnoor, in Indian-administered Kashmir, based on videos and news reports from the day, but it was not possible to determine what type of aircraft was in the wreckage from the available visuals.
Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said Pakistani planes never entered Indian territory and only shot down the Indian aircraft after they had 'delivered their payload'.
Arzan Tarapore, a research scholar focusing on Indian military strategy at Stanford University, said India's silence on the planes was unsurprising.
'The Indian government during a crisis is typically very guarded about operational details,' he said. 'It's harder to be restrained and control the trajectory of the crisis if you admit to severe losses.'
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Immediately after murdering Fernando Pereira and blowing up Greenpeace's ship the Rainbow Warrior in Auckland harbour, several of the French agents went on a ski holiday in New Zealand's South Island to celebrate. Such was the contempt the French had for the Kiwis and the abilities of our police to pursue them. How wrong they were. To mark the 40th anniversary of the French terrorist attack Little Island Press has published a revised edition of Eyes of Fire first released in 1986. A new prologue by former prime minister Helen Clark and a preface by Greenpeace's Bunny McDiarmid, along with an extensive postscript which bring us up to the present day, underline why the past is not dead; it's with us right now. Gil Hanly Written by David Robie, editor of Asia Pacific Report, who spent 11 weeks on the final voyage of the Warrior, the book is the most remarkable piece of history I have read this year and one of those rare books that has the power to expand your mind and make your blood boil at the same time. I thought I knew a fair bit about the momentous events surrounding the attack – until I read Eyes of Fire. Heroes of our age The book covers the history of Greenpeace action – from fighting the dumping of nuclear and other toxic waste in European waters, the Arctic and the Pacific, voyages to link besieged communities across the oceans, through to their epic struggles to halt whaling and save endangered marine colonies from predation. The Rainbow Warrior's very last voyage before the bombing was to evacuate the entire population of Rongelap in the Marshall Islands who had been exposed to U.S. nuclear radiation for decades. This article is the first of two in which I will explore themes that the book triggered for me. It's not a review - go and get your own copy right now! Neither secret nor intelligent - the French secret intelligence service. Jean-Luc Kister was the DGSE (Direction générale de la Sécurité extérieure) agent who placed the two bombs that ripped a massive hole in the hull of the Rainbow Warrior on 10 July 1985. The ship quickly sank, trapping Greenpeace photographer Fernando Pereira inside. Kister was a member of a large team of elite agents sent to New Zealand. Some had them infiltrated Greenpeace months before, some travelled through the country prior to the attack drinking, rooting New Zealand women and leaving a trail of breadcrumbs that led all the way to the Palais de l'Élysée where François Mitterrand, Socialist President of France, had personally given the order to bomb the famous peace vessel. Robie aptly calls the French mission 'Blundergate'. The stupidity, howling incompetence and moronic lack of a sound strategic rationale behind the attack were only matched by the mendacity, the imperial hauteur and the racist contempt that lies at the heart of French policy in the Pacific to this very day. Thinking the Kiwi police would be no match for their élan, their savoir-faire and their panache, some of the killers hit the ski slopes to celebrate 'Mission Accompli'. Others fled to Norfolk Island aboard a yacht, the Ouvéa. Tracked there by the New Zealand police it was only with the assistance of our friends and allies, the Australians, that the agents were able to escape. Within days they sank their yacht at sea during a rendezvous with a French nuclear submarine and were able to return to France for medals and promotions. Two of the agents however were not so lucky. As everyone my age will recall Dominique Prieur and Alain Mafart were nabbed after a lightning fast operation by New Zealand police. With friends and allies like these, who needs enemies? We should recall that the French were our allies at the time. They decided, however, to stop the Rainbow Warrior from leading a flotilla of ships up to Mururoa Atoll in French Polynesia where yet another round of nuclear tests were scheduled. In other words: they bombed a peace ship to keep testing bombs. By 1995 France had detonated 193 nuclear bombs in the South Pacific. David Robie sees the bombing as 'a desperate attempt by one of the last colonial powers in the Pacic to hang on to the vestiges of empire by blowing up a peace ship so it could continue despoiling Pacic islands for the sake of an independent nuclear force.' The US, UK and Australia cold-shouldered New Zealand through this period and uttered not a word of condemnation against the French. Within two years we were frog-marched out of the ANZUS alliance with Australia and the U.S. because of our ground-breaking nuclear-free legislation. It was a blessing and the dawn of a period in which New Zealanders had an intense sense of national pride – a far cry from today when New Zealand politicians are being referred to the ICC in the Hague for war crimes associated with the Gaza genocide. The French State invented the term 'terrorism' I studied French History at university in France and did a paper called 'La France à la veille de révolution' (France on the eve of revolution). One of the chilling cultural memories is of the period from September 1793 to July 1794 was known as La Terreur. At the time the French state literally coined the term 'terrorisme' - with the blade of the guillotine dropping on neck after neck as the state tried to consolidate power through terror. But, as Robie points out, quoting law professor Roger S. Clark, we tend to use the term today to refer almost exclusively to non-state actors. With the US and Israel gunning down starving civilians in Gaza every day, with wave after wave of terror attacks being committed inside Iran and across the Middle East by Mossad, the CIA and MI6, we should amend this erroneous habit. The DGSE team who attached limpet mines to the Rainbow Warrior did so as psychopathic servants of the French State. Eyes of Fire: 'At the time, Prime Minister David Lange described the Rainbow Warrior attack as 'nothing more than a sordid act of international state-backed terrorism'.' Don't get me wrong. I am not 'anti-French'. I lived for years in France, had a French girlfriend, studied French history, language and literature. I even had friends in Wellington who worked at the French embassy. Curiously when I lived next to Premier House, the official residence of the prime minister, my other next door neighbour was a French agent who specialised in surveillance. Our houses backed onto Premier House. Quelle coïncidence. To his mild consternation I'd greet him with 'Salut, mon espion favori.' (Hello, my favourite spy). What I despise is French colonialism, French racism, and what the French call magouillage. I don't know a good English word for it … it is a mix of shenanigans, duplicity, artful deception to achieve unscrupulous outcomes that can't be publicly avowed. In brief: what the French attempted in Auckland in 1985. Robie recounts in detail the lying, smokescreens and roadblocks that everyone from President Mitterrand through to junior officials put in the way of the New Zealand investigators. Mitterrand gave Prime Minister David Lange assurances that the culprits would be brought to justice. The French Embassy in Wellington said at the time: 'In no way is France involved. The French Government doesn't deal with its opponents in such ways'. It took years for the bombshell to explode that none other than Mitterrand himself had ordered the terrorist attack on New Zealand and Greenpeace! We the people of the Pacific We, the people of the Pacific, owe a debt to Greenpeace and all those who were part of the Rainbow Warrior, including author David Robie. We must remember the crime and call it by its name: state terrorism. The French attempted to escape justice, deny involvement and then welched on the terms of the agreement negotiated with the help of the United Nations Secretary-General. A great way to honour the sacrifice of those who stood up for justice, who stood for peace and a nuclear-free Pacific, and who honoured our own national identity would be to buy David Robie's excellent book. I'll give the last word to former Prime Minister Helen Clark: 'This is the time for New Zealand to link with the many small and middle powers across regions who have a vision for a world characterised by solidarity and peace and which can rise to the occasion to combat the existential challenges it faces – including nuclear weapons, climate change, and artificial intelligence. If our independent foreign policy is to mean anything in the mid-2020s, it must be based on concerted diplomacy for peace and sustainable development.' You cannot sink a rainbow. Eugene Doyle
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