The much-awaited retaliation by the Indian military for the Pulwama suicide bomb happened in the wee hours of Tuesday when 12 Mirage 2000 fighter jets of the Indian Air Force crossed the Line of Control and hit several terror camps.
The Indian Air Force Mirage 2000 jets crossed 50 miles undetected into Pakistan and hit Balakot in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province where several Jaish-e-Mohammed terror camps are located. Jaish chief Masood Azhar and his brother, Ibrahim, were believed to be regular visitors to the area. ANI reported targets in Chakothi and Muzaffarabad, which lie in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir, were also hit.
Now, apprehensive over a possible reaction from Pakistan, India has alerted all its air defence mechanisms. Following the successful Indian Air Force strike, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is meeting cabinet colleagues to discuss further strategies.
Though the Indian government is taking its time to officially react to the Indian Air Force strikes, official sources have indicated massive damage has been done on the Jaish terror camps. Initial inputs suggest that multiple terror camps in Balakot were targeted by the Mirage 2000 jets, which dropped nearly 1,000kg of bombs. Preliminary assessment by the Indian Air Force claim that the precision air strike could have caused deaths of nearly 200 men in these terror camps.
Acting on the specific intelligence inputs, around 3:30am, the Indian Air Force Mirage 2000 fighter jets used laser-guided bombs to target terror camps. The Mirage 2000 was chosen to carry out the mission because of its capability in the precision strike role. To maintain the element of surprise, 12 Mirage 2000 fighters took off from five airbases. And they took nearly 20 minutes to carry out the precision strike.
Hours earlier, the Pakistan military tweeted "Indian aircrafts intruded from Muzafarabad sector. Facing timely and effective response from Pakistan Air Force released payload in haste while escaping which fell near Balakot. No casualties or damage."
The Indian Air Force action was in retaliation to the February 14 suicide bomb attack on a convoy of vehicles carrying security personnel on the Jammu-Srinagar National Highway in Pulwama district, resulting in the deaths of over 40 CRPF jawans.
After the incident, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had given a 'free hand' to the army (security forces) to extract revenge at a place and time of their choosing. Since then, the security forces have made an 'action plan' to take on terror groups based in and outside India (read Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir).
On Monday, Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had a long interaction with the three service chiefs to discuss possible ways to teach Pakistan a lesson. During the meeting, they also discussed the Indian response to possible Pakistan retaliation in case of an Indian strike.
Indian forces had carried out a similar cross-border raid in September 2016 in retaliation to the Uri attack. At that time, Army special forces were used. But this time, the precision strike by fighter jets of the Indian Air Force must have caused massive damage compared with the 2016 surgical strike.
