Response to Pahalgam terror attack marks new normal in India-Pakistan ties

Paramilitary soldiers patrol near Dal lake in Srinagar on Sunday. LoC, N-threat can no longer be used to hit India with terror strikes, say sources

NEW DELHI: India successfully managed to achieve three main objectives – political, military and psychological – from the May 7 military strikes, according to government sources. “The military aim was, as the PM said, terrorists ko mitti mein mila denge. That was achieved in Bahawalpur, Muridke and Muzaffarabad. The political was to raise the cost of terrorism for Pakistan and to keep Indus Waters Treaty in abeyance till Pakistan stops promoting cross-border terrorism.And the psychological objective was ‘ghar mein ghus ke marenge’ and that no place is safe for you. All three were successfully achieved,” the source said.The sources said India’s military strikes on terrorist camps marked a new normal in ties – that LoC or nuclear threat could no longer be used to carry out terrorist attacks in India. They stressed that India was determined from the day of the Pahalgam attack that it would hit Pakistan’s terror factory, with the PM asking armed forces to respond to every ‘goli’ (bullet) with a ‘gola’ (cannonball).While admitting that US Vice President J D Vance spoke to PM Modi on May 9, government sources said even after the talks, Pakistan targeted 26 places in India at night, after which Indian armed forces hit back hard. Government sources also said the Indian DGMO had spoken to his Pakistani counterpart minutes after the May 7 strikes. He is learnt to have told him that India had hit terrorist camps and was ready to talk. The Pakistani DGMO that day showed no interest in engaging India on the military situation, but came around after India rained “hell fire” on May 10. According to Indian authorities, while violence has stopped, Operation Sindoor is still not over and the Indus Waters Treaty will remain in abeyance till the time Pakistan stops cross-border terrorism. Modi is learnt to have conveyed India’s resolve to bring the perpetrators to justice in a conversation with US President Donald Trump on April 22 itself, while he was in Saudi Arabia on the day of the Pahalgam attack, and external affairs minister S Jaishankar told his counterpart Marco Rubio on May 1 that India would hit at terror camps in Pakistan.At a briefing on Sunday, director general of air operations Air Marshal A K Bharti made it clear that the calibrated strikes on the Pakistan airbases and radar sites were undertaken after Pakistan upped the ante by relentlessly launching waves of drone attacks to target Indian airbases, military assets and civilian areas.Displaying “before and after” satellite and other images to show how some of the bases were hit multiple times, he said there was major damage to runways, aircraft hangers and base infrastructure at other Pakistan airbases like Sargodha, which houses F-16 jets, Skardu, Jacobabad, Bholari, Sukkur and Rahim Yar Khan as well.“To start with, our fight was only with the terrorists and not with the Pak Army. But we were relentlessly attacked and left with no choice,” Air Marshal Bharti said. A NOTAM (notice to airmen), incidentally, has been issued by Pakistan, saying that the only runway at the Rahim Yar Khan base would be “not be available for flight operations” for at least a week.“Even more than the actual damage, the messaging that we can hit the heartland of Pakistan was the key. The strikes were precise in order to not cause collateral damage to civilian infrastructure,” another senior officer told TOI.In all, the IAF fighters targeted nine airbases – the others being Rafiqui and Murid – as well as radar sites at Pasrur, Chunian and Sialkot aviation bases, as was reported by TOI earlier.Air Marshal Bharti did not specify the precision strike weapons used in the operation. Sources, however, said IAF deployed the twin-engine Sukhoi-30MKI fighters armed with the BrahMos missiles, whose range has been extended from 290 to 450-km, among other jets and weapons, for the mission that did not involve crossing the Line of Control or the international boundary.Other weapons included Crystal Maze-2 missiles, Scalp air-to-ground cruise missiles, Hammer air-to-ground precision-guided munitions and Spice-2000 precision-guided bombs.The Sukhois, with a combat radius of almost 1,500-km without mid-air refuelling, and the extended range BrahMos, which flies almost three times the speed of sound at Mach 2.8, together constitute a decidedly deadly weapons package.Around 40 Sukhoi fighters have also been modified to carry the BrahMos missiles. The IAF has been practising air-to-ground precision strikes against high-value targets from long stand-off distances in the Bay of Bengal for quite some time now.This time, the strike mission was across the frontier with Pakistan. “The IAF has successfully executed its assigned tasks in Operation Sindoor, with precision and professionalism. Operations were conducted in a deliberate and discreet manner, aligned with national objectives,” the IAF, posted on ‘X’.