India says Tuesday’s raid destroyed a major training camp of Jaish-e Mohammad, a militant group that claimed responsibility for a Feb. 14 attack in Indian-controlled Kashmir that killed 40 members of a paramilitary police unit.

India’s Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale said the strike killed “a very large number of Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorists, trainers, senior commanders, and groups of jihadis who were being trained for Fidayeen action were eliminated.” Fidayeen is a term used to describe Islamist militants on suicide missions.

However, on Thursday, asked about how much damage the warplanes had caused, Air Vice Marshal R.G.K. Kapoor said it was “premature” to provide details about casualties. But he said the Indian armed forces had “fairly credible evidence” of the damage inflicted on the camp by the air strikes.

What does global media say?

Reuters

Quoting  the only confirmed victim of India’s air strike against Pakistan, Reuters reported that the victim is still unsure why he was shaken awake in the early hours of Tuesday by an explosion that rocked his mud brick house and left him with a cut above his right eye.

“They say they wanted to hit some terrorists. What terrorists can you see here?” said 62-year-old Nooran Shah, a resident of Jaba village, near the northeastern town of Balakot in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

Locals say 400 to 500 people live locally, scattered across hills in mudbrick homes. Reuters spoke to about 15 people, none of whom knew of any casualties apart from Nooran Shah.

“I haven’t seen any dead bodies, only a local who was hurt by something or hit by some window, he was hurt,” said Abdur Rasheed, echoing numerous others.

In Basic Health Unit, Jaba, the nearest hospital, Mohammad Saddique, an official who was on duty on the night of the attack, also dismissed claims of major casualties.

“It is just a lie. It is rubbish,” he said. “We didn’t receive even a single injured person. Only one person got slightly hurt and he was treated there. Even he wasn’t brought here.”

Al Jazeera

Al Jazeera had a ground report that looked into the authenticity of India’s claims. Contrary to FS Gokhale’s claims of having eliminated a large number of JeM terrorists, the report’s headline states there were “no casualties”.

“Local hospital officials and several residents who rushed to the scene said they did not find any bodies or wounded people following the Indian attack, which took place at approximately 3am local time on Tuesday,” the report stated. The article also included the testimony of a person who was injured in the airstrike.

New York Times

A piece in NYT pointed out out the difference in claims when it comes to the loss inflicted due to India’s airstrike: “Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, up for re-election in two months time, claimed to have hit a terrorist training camp in the Balakot area in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan, killing 300 militants. Pakistan’s military spokesman, Major General Asif Ghafoor, denied the claims, saying that Indian war planes dropped their payloads without causing any casualties or damage to infrastructure.”

The Washington Post

The Post’s coverage of the ongoing conflict between the two nations is nothing short of extensive. Like the NYT, a piece in the Washington Post also pointed out the duelling accounts concerning casualties reported. It stated that the act of an Indian aircraft venturing beyond the Line of Control to hit targets on Pakistani soil marked a potentially grave escalation of tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbours.

American Broadcasting Company (ABC News)

ABC News reported on India’s Balakot bombing, Pakistan’s capturing of an Indian pilot, Pak PM Imran Khan’s statement and more.

ABC News also seems to have taken note of the differing number of casualties being reported by the two nations. “While the Indian foreign secretary claimed in a statement on Monday that a “very large number” of terrorists had been killed, the effectiveness of the attack has been refuted by Pakistan,” the piece stated. It added: “The spokesperson for the Pakistani military claimed on Twitter there had been no casualties, as the aircraft were apparently successfully scrambled after arriving in Pakistan’s territory.”

The Guardian

To explain the crisis that is unfolding between India and Pakistan, The Guardian has a visual guide.  The Guardian highlighted conflicting narratives coming out of India and Pakistan. It pointed out FS Gokhale’s claims of elimination of “very large number of JeM terrorists…”, while also stating that Islamabad released pictures of uprooted trees and cratered soil, which it claimed was the extent of the damage from the Indian bombing.