Trump's Jet Loss Claim Fuels Congress Salvo

Trump's remark on five jets downed revives row over Operation Sindoor losses.

- ANAND SINGH

U.S. President Donald Trump has given the Congress party fresh ammunition to target Prime Minister Narendra Modi after Trump stated that five fighter jets were lost during the four-day Operation Sindoor in May this year, when India was engaged in a bitter conflict with Pakistan.

Trump, while speaking at a dinner with Republican lawmakers at the White House, did not specify which country's aircraft were downed.

Trump said, "You had India, Pakistan, that was going...in fact, planes were being shot out of the air...four or five. But I think five jets were shot down actually...that was getting worse and worse, wasn't it? That was looking like it was going to go...these are two serious nuclear countries, and they were hitting each other."

Trump's remarks came in the wake of his repeated claims of brokering a cease-fire between the two nuclear-armed neighbours.

The Congress, and especially Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, had been continuously asking the government and the Prime Minister how many jets India had lost during Operation Sindoor, which was launched in response to the Pahalgam terror attack on April 22.