Information Ministry rejects claims of Pakistani jet shot down in Afghanistan

ISLAMABAD: The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting on Saturday dismissed reports claiming that a Pakistani fighter jet had been shot down in Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province and that its pilot had been captured.

In a statement posted by its fact-check account on X, the ministry said the claim originated from officials of the so-called Islamic Emirate and was subsequently amplified by segments of Indian media and Afghan propaganda outlets.

“The Ministry of Defence of the so-called Islamic Emirate claimed that Afghan forces shot down a Pakistani fighter jet in Nangarhar and captured its pilot alive. The claim was widely amplified by Indian media and Afghan propaganda outlets,” the statement said.

The ministry maintained that Pakistan’s armed forces had not reported any aircraft loss. It added that no independent international media outlet or defence monitoring agency had verified the claim.

“The story relies solely on statements from Afghan officials and selective media amplification,” it said.

According to the ministry, there was no visual proof of crash debris, a wreckage site or a captured pilot. “No geolocated imagery or satellite evidence supports the claim,” it said, adding that in modern conflict environments, verified crashes are typically documented rapidly—which had not occurred in this case.

It further stated that videos circulating online as purported evidence of a jet crash were from unrelated incidents in Afghanistan and were being recycled to fit the narrative. The ministry also flagged a “misleading image” shared by TOLO News, saying the picture corresponded to a Russian aircraft incident in Turkey in 2021.

“Reusing unrelated foreign crash imagery is a deliberate attempt to construct a false narrative,” the statement said.

The ministry added that over the past two days, hundreds of fake or misleading videos linked to what it described as the India–Afghan propaganda ecosystem had been debunked, arguing that the jet claim formed part of a coordinated disinformation cycle.

“No credible defence analysis suggests Afghan forces possess the operational capability demonstrated in the claim,” it added.

Separately, Foreign Office spokesperson Tahir Hussain Andrabi termed the reports “totally untrue”.

“That’s a false claim. Totally untrue,” Andrabi told AFP.