Pakistan said that Indian fighter jets unintentionally entered its airspace Saturday, approaching the suspected enclaves of the group allegedly responsible for last month's strikes on the Indian city of Mumbai, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, Dec. 9).
(Dec. 15) -
An Indian fighter jet participates in a 2007 exercise (Prakash Singh/Getty Images).
"Indian aircraft entered into Pakistan's airspace" over the city of Lahore and a Pakistani region of Kashmir, the Pakistani air force said in a statement. The planes "were swiftly responded [to] by the efficient Pakistan air defense system, forcing them to return to their own territory," the air force said.
Pakistan played down the incident, however, perhaps out of concern about further heightening tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbors.
"We contacted the Indian air force and they said the violation was inadvertent. We don't want to escalate the situation," said Pakistani Information Minister Sherry Rehman (Agence France-Presse I/Spacewar.com, Dec. 14).
Observers in Pakistan said the Indian overflights might have been aimed at signaling New Delhi's intention to hunt down those behind the Mumbai strikes if Islamabad failed to do so, Time magazine reported (Aryn Baker, Time, Dec. 14).
India's air force rebuffed claims that it had violated Pakistan's borders, AFP reported.
"There has not been any airspace violation as has been alleged," said an Indian air force spokesman, Wing Commander Mahesh Upasani (Agence France-Presse II/Spacewar.com, Dec. 14).
Meanwhile, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown traveled from India to Pakistan yesterday in an attempt to address troubles between the countries, the New York Times reported. Brown pressed Pakistan to clamp down on violent militants in its territory and offered the South Asian state $9 million in counterterrorism assistance.
Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari rejected Brown's insistence that the Pakistani extremist organization Lashkar e-Taiba was responsible for the attacks in Mumbai, a claim backed by New Delhi and Washington. Zardari said his government had not received any proof from India linking the group to the incident.
Brown said he was pursuing clearance for British officials to interrogate the the sole surviving perpetrator of the Mumbai strikes, which killed 171 people as well as nine attackers (Oppel/Masood, New York Times, Dec. 14).