US President Donald Trump on Friday once again claimed credit for preventing a major conflict between India and Pakistan, saying the two nuclear-armed nations were “hitting each other” and that “four or five jets were shot down” before tensions were eased “through trade talks.“Speaking at a private dinner with Republican lawmakers at the White House, Trump said, “We stopped a lot of wars. And these were serious, India and Pakistan, that was going on… These are two serious nuclear countries, and they were hitting each other. You know, it seems like a new form of warfare.”“Planes were being shot out of the air… five, five, four or five, but I think five jets were shot down, actually,” he added.He went on to explain how his administration used trade negotiations as leverage to calm tensions. “India and Pakistan were going at it, and they were back and forth, and it was getting bigger and bigger, and we got it solved through trade. We said, you guys want to make a trade deal,” he said. “We’re not making a trade deal if you’re going to be throwing around weapons, and maybe nuclear weapons, both very powerful nuclear states,” he added.Trump also claimed that US also dismantled Iran’s nuclear program. “You saw it recently when you looked at what we did in Iran, where we knocked out their nuclear capability, totally knocked out that,” he asserted.This isn’t the first time Trump has made such a claim. Earlier in the week, he said, “We’ve been very successful in settling wars. You have India and Pakistan. You have Rwanda and the Congo, that was going on for 30 years. India, by the way, Pakistan would have been a nuclear war within another week, the way that was going. That was going very badly, and we did that through trade.”“I said, ‘we’re not going to talk to you about trade unless you get this thing settled,’ and they did, and they were both great, great leaders, and they were great,” he added.While Trump has reiterated that he helped “stop” the conflict through diplomacy and trade pressure, the actual peace move actually began when Pakistan’s Director General of Military Operations (DGMO) contacted his Indian counterpart to request a halt to all hostilities, on land, in the air, and at sea.Tensions had sharply escalated following a deadly terror attack on April 22 in Jammu and Kashmir’s Anantnag district. The strike, carried out by Pakistan-backed militants in Pahalgam, killed 26 people.In response, India launched Operation Sindoor on May 7, with the Indian Air Force (IAF) targeting nine major terror hubs inside Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK).Pakistan attempted to retaliate with drones and missile strikes, but Indian air defence systems successfully intercepted all incoming threats. As tensions rose, the IAF carried out precision strikes on 11 Pakistani airbases, including strategic sites such as Nur Khan and Rahim Yar Khan. While there were no casualties or structural damage reported in India, the Indian military released visual proof of the damage caused by its cross-border strikes.The IAF’s strong air defence capabilities played a crucial role in safeguarding Indian airspace during the exchange, neutralising multiple UAV and drone threats.
