It may be a new year, but Pakistan appears to be reverting to a familiar information warfare playbook. On Thursday, several pro-Pakistani social media handles circulated misleading “before” and “after” images, claiming strikes on the Amritsar airbase in Punjab and a BrahMos missile facility in Beas during last year’s hostilities. Independent experts, however, have debunked the claims using publicly available satellite imagery, which shows the sites intact and undergoing routine maintenance.
The episode mirrors a narrative Pakistan has repeatedly pushed since May last year, following India’s Operation Sindoor, during which New Delhi struck nine terror camps and 11 key Pakistani airbases in response to the Pahalgam terror attack. Unlike Islamabad, India backed its claims by releasing authenticated before-and-after images of the targeted sites.
Pro-Pakistani accounts alleged that medium-range Fatah missiles had destroyed hangars at the Amritsar Air Force Station and damaged a BrahMos storage facility in Beas. Geo-intelligence expert Damien Symon, however, pointed out that there was no evidence of any such destruction on satellite imagery. According to him, pre-construction images were being falsely presented as damage caused by missile strikes.
Calling it a crude attempt at disinformation, Symon wrote on X: “A ‘before’ image taken on May 15, 2025 — four days after the India-Pakistan conflict ended — is being compared with an image from November 2025 to falsely claim damage at a munitions site in Beas.” He shared Google Earth images to underline the discrepancy.
The claims quickly drew ridicule online, with several analysts and OSINT experts calling out Pakistan’s renewed effort to manufacture battlefield success.
One user noted that what was being projected as missile damage was, in fact, ongoing rooftop work involving disruptive camouflage patterns designed to counter drone surveillance. Another OSINT analyst said no blast marks were visible and accused Pakistani accounts of recycling old imagery to prop up false claims even in 2026.
Defence analyst Yusuf Unjhawala also weighed in, remarking that while debates in India often revolve around “losing the narrative”, Pakistan was still scrambling to invent one long after the conflict had ended.
The renewed disinformation push comes days after Pakistan’s government, for the first time, publicly acknowledged the impact of India’s Operation Sindoor. Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar admitted that Indian drones had damaged key military installations, including at the Nur Khan airbase — a rare confirmation that undercuts earlier denials from Islamabad.