India and Pakistan Talked Big, But Satellite Imagery Shows Limited Damage - The New York Times


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India-Pakistan Military Clash: Limited Damage Despite Extensive Fighting

The recent four-day military conflict between India and Pakistan, the most extensive in 50 years, involved widespread attacks using drones and missiles. Both sides claimed significant damage to enemy targets. However, satellite imagery analysis suggests the damage was less extensive than reported, primarily inflicted by India on Pakistani military facilities.

Satellite Imagery Evidence

High-resolution satellite images from before and after the strikes show clear, but limited and precise, damage to several Pakistani air bases, including Bholari, Nur Khan, Rahim Yar Khan, and Sargodha. The images show damage to hangars and runways.

Casualties and Aircraft Losses

Both sides suffered casualties. India acknowledged five soldiers killed, while Pakistan reported eleven. India likely lost at least two aircraft, possibly more, representing a significant blow.

Discrepancies in Claims

Pakistan claimed to have targeted numerous Indian military bases, but satellite images don't clearly show significant damage at those sites. Pakistan's claim of destroying India's Udhampur air base is contradicted by satellite imagery showing no apparent damage.

Conclusion

While the conflict involved extensive military action and significant casualties, satellite imagery suggests the actual damage was less widespread and primarily inflicted by India on Pakistani targets. The discrepancies in the reported damage highlight the ongoing information war alongside the military conflict.

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The four-day military clash between India and Pakistan was the most expansive fighting in half a century between the two nuclear-armed countries, with the skies lighting up night after night along the vast boundary dividing them and deep inside their territories.

Alongside that shooting war, the two sides also waged an information war. As both countries used hundreds of drones and missiles to test each other’s air defenses and deliver hits on military facilities, they claimed expansive accounts of severe blows inflicted on the enemy.

But an examination of satellite imagery indicates that while the attacks were widespread, the damage was far more contained than claimed — and mostly inflicted by India on Pakistani facilities. In a new age of high-tech warfare, which has quickly reshaped the nature of South Asia’s most protracted conflict, verified strikes launched against both sides appeared to be precise.

What is increasingly clear is that both sides suffered casualties among their armed forces, with India acknowledging the loss of five soldiers and Pakistan reporting 11. The heaviest blow to India appears to be the loss of aircraft. While the Indian government has not said how many went down, officials and diplomats say that at least two aircraft were lost, and most likely more.

Where India appears to have had a clear edge is in its targeting of Pakistan’s military facilities and airfields, as the latter stretch of fighting shifted from symbolic strikes and shows of force to attacks on each other’s defense capabilities.

High-resolution satellite imagery, from before and after the strikes, shows clear damage to Pakistan’s facilities by Indian strikes, if limited and precise in nature.

At Bholari air base, located less than 100 miles from the Pakistani port city of Karachi, India’s defense officials said they had struck an aircraft hangar with a precision strike. The visuals showed clear damage to what looks like a hangar.

Sources: Satellite images by Maxar Technologies and Planet Labs

The Nur Khan air base, within a roughly 15-mile range of both the Pakistani Army’s headquarters and the office of the country’s prime minister and a short distance from the unit that oversees and protects Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, was perhaps the most sensitive military target that India struck.

Sources: Satellite images by Maxar Technologies and Planet Labs

The Indian military said it had particularly targeted the runways and other facilities at some of Pakistan’s key air bases. Satellite images showed the damage. On May 10, Pakistan issued a notice for Rahim Yar Khan air base saying that the runway was not operational.

Sources: Satellite images by Maxar Technologies and Planet Labs

At Sargodha air base, in Punjab Province in Pakistan, the Indian military said it had used precision weapons to strike two sections of the runway.

Sources: Satellite images by Maxar Technologies and Planet Labs

Pakistan’s military listed two dozen Indian military installations and bases that it said its forces had targeted. While Indian officials have acknowledged “limited damage” at four air bases, they have offered few details.

Satellite images of the sites Pakistan claimed to have hit are limited, and so far do not clearly show damage caused by Pakistani strikes even at bases where there was corroborating evidence of some military action.

Pakistani officials, according to state media, said their forces had “destroyed” India’s Udhampur air base. The family of one Indian soldier has confirmed his death on the base. But an image from May 12 does not appear to show damage.

Source: Satellite image by Planet Labs

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