Afghans Shot Down Intruding Pakistani F-16 That Ignored Warnings, Kabul Says

In the latest episode of an escalating undeclared air war between Afghanistan and Pakistan, officials here said Friday that an advanced Pakistani jet fighter was shot down after it strayed over Afghan territory and ignored warnings to change its course.

The official Bakhtar News Agency described the downed plane as a sophisticated F-16 fighter, one of 40 supplied to Pakistan by the United States as part of a military assistance program linked to the Afghan war.

On Wednesday, Pakistani officials had confirmed that an unspecifed Pakistani air force jet had been lost in aerial combat with Afghan fighters the previous day. However, they charged that it was shot down over Pakistani territory near Miram Shah, more than 100 miles south-southeast of here.

In a period of increasing tension on the mountainous border between the two countries, it was the first time that Pakistan had lost an aircraft to Afghan warplanes. Pakistani fighters have shot down two Afghan aircraft that, according to the Pakistani government, had violated Pakistani airspace.

A Bitter Issue

The most recent incident, in which Pakistani F-16s downed an Afghan AN-26 on March 30 in the same border area near Miram Shah, has become a bitter issue here in Afghanistan. Thousands of wall posters around the Afghan capital and in neighboring villages depict the jet fighters splitting open the Afghan aircraft and spilling women and children to the ground.

Officials in the Soviet-backed Afghan regime contended that the plane was a civilian transport carrying 40 passengers, including two children, bound for Khost, 15 miles inside Afghanistan.

So the downing of the Pakistani jet was viewed here as a triumph for the Afghan air force and revenge for the loss of the AN-26.

In a special bulletin broadcast on Afghan television, the official report said the Pakistani jet was one of two “American-made F-16 aircraft that crossed the Afghanistan border and entered into the Khost district of Paktia province. Our Afghan air force warned them that they were entering Afghan airspace, but they ignored the warnings and continued entering.”

Pakistani officials strongly denied that the jets were over Afghan territory. They said the pilot of the downed jet parachuted safely into Pakistan.

In the rugged frontier between the two countries, there are no rivers or other natural landmarks delineating the border. Pakistan charges that Afghan and Soviet aircraft have entered Pakistani airspace illegally more than 1,000 times since the beginning of the year and that 300 people have died in Afghan bombing raids.

Most of the targets hit by Afghan bombing are in areas used as staging camps for Afghan rebels, the moujahedeen , who are engaged in a seven-year war against Afghan government and Soviet forces inside Afghanistan.

Without ever officially acknowledging their presence, Pakistan has provided haven for the rebels as well as 2.8 million refugees from Afghanistan, the largest refugee population in the world.

The United States supports the Afghan rebel cause with a $400-million-a-year covert arms program, the largest such operation conducted by the CIA since the Vietnam War. The U.S. military assistance program for Pakistan is also linked to the Afghan war since it is tied to Pakistan’s support of the moujahedeen.

U.S. officials are known to have encouraged Pakistan to be more aggressive with its air force against intruding Afghan aircraft. In this regard, the loss of the Pakistani jet was viewed as a setback. “I am afraid they (Pakistan) will go back to being more cautious,” said one Western diplomatic source here.

Meanwhile, a diplomatic source familiar with the Pakistani position said the apparent loss of an F-16--an aircraft that Pakistan regards as the heart of its air force, and which has assumed almost mythic proportions among civilians there--will be a heavy blow to morale. In Pakistan, nearly every large truck and many private cars are decorated with decals or paintings of the sleek American jet.

“Before this,” the source said, “there was a feeling the F-16 was invincible.”