IAF DOWNS DRONE NEAR PAKISTAN BORDER
In a chilling message to Pakistan that it cannot keep messing with India, the IAF bombed the Jaish-e-Mohammed’s (JeM) biggest training camp killing “a very large number” of terrorists and their trainers in a pre-dawn operation on Tuesday — exactly 12 days after a JeM suicide bomber killed 40 CRPF troopers in the Kashmir Valley.
Speaking publicly for the first time after the IAF attack, Prime Minister Narendra Modi told a public rally at Churu in Rajasthan that “today is a historic day” but made no reference to Pakistan or JeM whose suicide bombing at Pulwama on February 14 sent New Delhi-Islamabad ties on a nose-dive.
After initially insisting that the Indian action took place in that part of Kashmir it controls, Pakistani military authorities finally admitted that the IAF had hit Balakot in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 195km from Islamabad and over 40km from Muzaffarabad, capital of the Pakistani-administered Kashmir.
It was the first time the IAF had crossed into Pakistan after the 1971 war.
The Indian Air Force used Mirage 2000 fighter jets for the precision strike, and official sources said the aircraft spent 21 minutes in Pakistani air space — a remarkable feat as one minute is equal to 17km at attack speed.
The fighter jets were backed by Emb 145 early warning plane which was deployed to pick up emerging threat at a large distance and alert the attacking pilots. India also used a mid-air refueller.
The Mirage 2000 fires a range of Western weapons. After the upgrade, the Mirages have Mica airto-air multi-mission missiles and a range of precision guided bombs including Israeli spice.
As celebrations erupted across India, Foreign Secretary Vijay K. Gokhale said: “India struck the biggest training camp of JeM in Balakot. In this operation, a very large number of JeM terrorists, trainers, senior commanders and groups of jehadis who were being trained for fidayeen action were eliminated. “This facility at Balakot was headed by Maulana Yusuf Azhar (alias Ustad Ghouri), the brother-in-law of (JeM leader) Masood Azhar.”
Gokhale said the Indian government was “firmly and resolutely committed to taking all necessary measures to fight the menace of terrorism. Hence, this non-military pre-emptive action was specifically targeted at the JeM camp. The selection of the target was also conditioned by our desire to avoid civilian casualties.” —