Operation Sindoor: How India's AI-powered ghost Rafales outfoxed Pakistan | Explained

On May 7, 2025, the Indian Air Force launched Operation Sindoor, a four-day air campaign in response to the Pahalgam terror attack, which had killed 26 civilians in Jammu and Kashmir just weeks earlier. While Indian jets struck terror camps in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) with precision-guided missiles, the headlines across Islamabad told a different story. Pakistan claimed it had shot down multiple Indian fighter jets, including Rafales. But new reports suggest those kills may have never happened. A recent Jane's Defence Weekly investigation has revealed that several Pakistani claims of downing Rafales were based on successful hits on towed decoys, not actual aircraft. The deception was executed using a little-known but game-changing system onboard India's Rafale jets, X-Guard, an artificial intelligence-powered decoy that mimics a real jet in every detectable way. What they actually hit was X-Guard, a 30-kg towed decoy system trailing invisibly behind Indian Rafales.