Pakistan Says it Downed 25 Indian Drones After New “Serious Provocation”
Pakistan said it has downed 25 Indian loitering munition drones across the country, after what it called a “serious provocation” from New Delhi that wounded four soldiers and killed a civilian.
“Debris of Israeli-made Harop drones is being recovered from various areas across Pakistan,” the military said in a separate statement.
Harop drones are a long-range loitering munition – effectively a flying bomb guided by an operator – that is made by Israel Aerospace Industries, an Israeli aerospace manufacturer.
Earlier, Pakistan Army spokesman Lt. Gen. Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry said 12 Harop drones had been shot down across Pakistan overnight Wednesday into Thursday.
CNN cannot independently verify the claims and has reached out to the Indian Air Force and Ministry of Defense for comment.
Drones were downed across Pakistan, from Rawalpindi in the north – home to the military’s main headquarters – to a site near the port megacity of Karachi in the south, Chaudhry said.
In southeast Sindh province, one civilian was killed and another injured due to the drone’s “activity,” he added.
One of the drones was able to “partially” engage its target near Lahore – a city of around 13 million people near the border with India – wounding four army personnel, Chaudhry said.
Chaudhry said that Pakistan air forces were at a “high state of alert and vigilance.”
