Former US President Donald Trump has altered his claim about the number of fighter jets downed during the military conflict between India and Pakistan, now saying that seven aircraft were destroyed.
Trump on Monday once again repeated his assertion that he had brokered a ceasefire between the two nations in May, but revised the details of the confrontation.
“The war with India and Pakistan was the next level that was going to be a nuclear war... They already shot down 7 jets – that was raging,” he said.
This is not the first time Trump has spoken about the incident. Last month, the Republicans had claimed that five jets were downed when “two serious nuclear countries” exchanged fire. As on previous occasions, he did not specify which country had shot down how many aircraft.
His latest remarks come weeks after Air Chief Marshal Amar Preet Singh confirmed that India had shot down five Pakistani fighter jets during Operation Sindoor, the military action aimed at targeting terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.
Singh had also noted that the aircraft were destroyed by the S-400 air defence systems, describing it as the largest ever recorded surface-to-air kill.
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In addition to the five fighter jets, India’s Air Chief Marshal said a large Airborne Early Warning and Control (AEW&C) aircraft was also destroyed in the operation.
Trump, while reiterating his version of events, linked the ceasefire to trade threats. “I said, ‘You want to trade? We are not doing any trade or anything with you if you keep fighting. You’ve got 24 hours to settle it.’
They said, ‘Well, there’s no more war going on.’ I used that on numerous occasions. I used trade and whatever I had to use,” he said.
The truce between the two neighbours was declared on May 10, days after Operation Sindoor was launched in response to the killing of 26 civilians in a terrorist attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam on 22 April.
Trump has repeatedly claimed credit for the cessation of hostilities, despite New Delhi rejecting his version of events. India has consistently maintained that the ceasefire was reached bilaterally following a call from Pakistan’s Director General of Military Operations to his Indian counterpart, with no third-party intervention.
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