‘Rafale jets, drone myths, civilian casualty claims’: How Pakistan fuelled a propaganda offensive with digital psy-ops

Simply earlier than daybreak on Might 7, a calculated Indian airstrike shook terrorist camps inside Pakistani territory. Whereas New Delhi underscored the surgical precision of its mission, throughout the border, chaos spilled onto screens and timelines, as Pakistani media and social influencers painted a vastly completely different image. What adopted was not only a navy standoff, however a digital onslaught — an orchestrated marketing campaign of disinformation and psychological warfare aimed toward shaping international notion.

India’s precision airstrike, supposed to dismantle imminent terror threats, sparked an instantaneous propaganda struggle on Pakistani social media. Whereas Indian officers pressured that the operation solely focused non-state terror infrastructure, Pakistani reviews accused India of civilian casualties, claiming a 15-year-old woman died and 29 others had been injured when a faculty zone was allegedly hit. These assertions stay unverified by unbiased observers.

Social platforms in Pakistan had been quickly inundated with movies and pictures purporting to point out the strike’s aftermath. Nevertheless, many had been discovered to be recycled or deceptive, pointing to a coordinated try and mislead the general public and worldwide neighborhood. Truth-checkers flagged a number of posts as misinformation, with content material starting from outdated photos to fully unrelated footage.

One focus of the marketing campaign was India’s Rafale fighter jets. Considered in Pakistan as symbols of Indian air superiority, the Rafales turned targets of false claims. Posts urged these jets had been intercepted or shot down, regardless of the absence of credible proof. This narrative was seemingly designed to erode India’s perceived navy edge and inflate Pakistan’s defensive capabilities.

Pakistan’s media additionally launched a counter-narrative in opposition to Indian information shops, accusing them of exaggerating the strike’s success and spreading falsehoods about its scope. Pakistani commentators insisted that India had missed high-value targets and struck inconsequential places, trying to reframe the occasion as a botched propaganda stunt by New Delhi.

Additional intensifying the knowledge struggle, Pakistan-based influencers promoted emotionally charged tales of drone strikes on civilian zones. These posts, emphasizing alleged assaults on colleges, had been crafted to border India as a violator of worldwide norms and human rights. Regardless of no Indian drones being reported shot down, social media posts glorified Pakistan’s navy response, claiming full management over its airspace.

India, in the meantime, maintained that its goal was restricted: concentrating on terror teams and never civilians or state infrastructure. Indian protection sources additionally dismissed unverified Pakistani claims of retaliatory strikes into Indian territories, asserting that any such makes an attempt had been thwarted by air protection methods, together with the S-400.

With tensions simmering and no confirmed breach of Indian airspace, the incident uncovered the deepening reliance on digital psy-ops as a instrument of recent battle. Pakistan’s social media blitz, aimed toward home reassurance and international sympathy, underscored a broader sample of utilizing misinformation to compensate for strategic and technological gaps.