Pakistan's Air Defence units suffer serious damage: Sources

Islamabad [Pakistan], May 8 : Pakistan's Air Defence Units of the HQ-9 air defence missile launchers have suffered heavy damage, according to reports from sources in Islamabad.

The reports come even as tensions continue between India and Pakistan after India executed Operation Sindoor in which nine terror sites inside Pakistan were destroyed. Pakistan's Director General of Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said 24 impacts were reported, with different weapons, in six localities during the strikes.

The Pakistan Army also made claims of downing drones of the Indian Armed forces, a claim that has not been verified.

In fact, the Pakistani side has jumped into a misinformation war against India following India's precision missile strikes. It shows Pakistan's desperate attempt to shift the focus with a barrage of lies and digital theatrics. Pakistan's state-affiliated accounts have turned to their familiar playbook of recycling outdated images, misrepresenting old videos, and inventing completely fabricated claims to flood the information space with falsehoods so quickly and overwhelmingly that it becomes difficult to separate fact from fiction.

The Fact Check unit of the Press Information Bureau (PIB) has exposed this misinformation campaign by Pakistan-based social media handles, which are trying to blatantly hijack the narrative and distract from the on-ground reality.

The Fact Check unit today debunked another fabricated narrative by the Pakistan side of conducting strikes on a military base in Amritsar, Punjab, asserting that the narrative was false and misleading.

The post shared by a Pakistani user named Shamil Jawani (@ShamilJawani1) alleged "numerous casualties" and "several critically injured" at the Amritsar base, using hashtags like #IndiaPakistanWar, #OperationSindoor, and #Pakistan.The PIB Fact Check stamped the video as "FAKE" and issued a warning against the spread of unverified information, labelling it a "Pakistan Propaganda Alert".The unit clarified that the video accompanying the claim is an old clip from a 2024 wildfire, unrelated to any military operation or strike.

Another example of Pakistan's desperate attempt at such theatrics is the viral image falsely claiming that the Pakistan Army had shot down an Indian Rafale jet near Bahawalpur. The image, however, was debunked by PIB Fact Check, which confirmed that it was actually from a MiG-21 crash in Moga, Punjab, in 2021 - entirely unrelated to current events.

Pakistan's Defence Minister Khawaja Asif was on Wednesday exposed on international TV. While appearing on a CNN interview, the Anchor asked Asif, "You say Pakistan shot down 5 Indian jets. Where's the evidence? A stumped Khwaja Asif replied, "It's all over social media,"

The anchor replied, " I'm sorry we didn't ask you here to talk about social media content."

A Defence Minister citing social media content to back unverified claims shows that Pakistan's rank and file has relied on fake news to push its case.

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