JF-17 Thunder, Not F-16 Shot Down IAF Jet: Pak

Islamabad: Pakistan military has said that JF-17 Thunder, not US-made F-16, was used to shoot down the IAF jet at the peak of hostilities between the two nations, The Express Tribune reported Monday. 

The daily quoting military spokesman Major General Asif Ghafoor's interview with Russian news agency Sputnik reported: "The aircraft which engaged those targets and fought them were JF-17. As regard to how to use F-16, in what context [they] were used or not -- because at that point of time our entire Air Force was airborne -- now it remains between Pakistan and the US to see how the MoUs regarding the use of F-16 have been adhered to or otherwise," he said in an interview.

Sharing Pakistan's account of the events that preceded the dogfight on February 28, he said Indian jets violated Pakistani airspace on February 26, dropping payloads without inflicting any casualties or damage to infrastructure.

"Next day, our air force, while staying within our own airspace, took four targets in India-Administered Kashmir ... Being a responsible country, we could have caused damage even to the military installations or human life ... But we had to show our will, capability and resolve."

"So what we did -- we first chose the targets, and when the targets were locked by the aircraft, we shifted the point of impact to a safety distance where there was no infrastructure or human life, meaning thereby that we wanted to tell Indians that we had the capability to hit that military target, but in the interest of peace in the region we are only showing you our capability," Ghafoor said.

He added that Pakistan had the footage of this operation.

Apart from its nuclear-armed ballistic missiles, no weapon system of Pakistan has caused as much heartburn to the Indian public as its fleet of US-built F-16 fighter jets. The first F-16 reached Pakistani soil in 1982, and Islamabad is believed to have a total fleet of around 75 jets.

The Indian Air Force claimed that the recovery of parts of an AIM-120 Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM) proved that a Pakistani F-16 was involved in the violation of Indian airspace on February 28. As the AMRAAM is integrated only on the F-16 for the Pakistan Air Force, the IAF declared Pakistan had violated its 'commitment' to the US to not use the fighter and its weapons for "offensive" missions.

In 2005, when the George W. Bush administration announced plans to resume F-16 sales to Pakistan, it triggered furious criticism from India. The deal--valued at $5.1 billion and including the supply of 36 F-16s along with upgrades to in-service aircraft--and was interpreted as a sign of US 'gratitude' for Pakistan's support for the war on terror in Afghanistan. The US had embargoed the sale of 71 F-16s to Pakistan in 1990 due to Islamabad's nuclear weapons programme.