By Sushil Kutty
The Indian Air Force is drawing kudos from all flying quarters except from fly-by-night operators in the Pakistani media and Pakistani intelligentsia along with retired Pakistani diplomats and Pakistani generals, for laying waste nine Pakistan Air bases and downing hundreds of Turkiye drones, in the “4-Day War” between the two nuclear armed neighbours, which Pakistan never fails to mention in any of its references to India, whether it is to the USA or to China or Turkiye, two countries which are “true friends” of Pakistan.
The USA is also a friend of sorts to Pakistan. America’s famed F-16 jet-fighter in the Pakistani line-up of military aircraft is proof of this friendship on the sly. The F-16 is made to order for carrying and dropping nuclear bombs and for the Pakistan Air Force, the F-16 is a flying pride that even the Americans would not understand. But this is about the complete dominance of the Indian Air Force in the “4-Day War”, and the cause of the devastation of Pakistan’s “famed” airpower.
Nine air bases with tarmacs cratered beyond recognition! Chinese missiles left stranded and Chinese jet-fighters unable to beat the drone swarms sent across the border deep into Pakistan. And while this was happening, India’s air defence system thwarted every single attempt by Pakistani drones and missiles to slam-dunk military targets in India.
Pakistani media, in the best-ever cover-up since the time of Goebbels, kept flying canards higher than the Himalayas and deeper than the oceans, talking of “15 cities hit” in India’s north and west by Pakistan’s “invincible drones”, but all a lie. If any military targets were hit, they were in Pakistan. Indian missiles and drones had a field day both in the skies above Islamabad and Rawalpindi but also on land where Pakistan’s China-made radars stood sentinel against India’s airpower.
The Pakistani media is still talking of “Adampur gaya” and “Hindustan ka cheh Rafale giraya”, with CNN giving its own spin to Pakistani journalist Hamid Mir’s narrative. Mir, who was once the ISI’s guest when he went missing for a month or so, has developed a running rivalry with India’s own Hamid Mir, Republic TV’s Arnab Goswami, and he continues to tear the Indian Air Force’s ability to hit targets, his doubts and suspicions centred on India’s Rafales.
The French should take back the Rafales from the IAF, says Mir, who never dwelled on Pakistan’s damaged beyond repair air bases and the drone carcasses littered across the length of Pakistan’s border with India, downed by Indian drones, missiles and loitering munitions. Mir and his equally adept at lying colleagues are a discovery in themselves, a master class in spinning implausible narratives with a straight face, hand on heart, Allah ho Akbar!
By the end of the second day, Pakistan’s air defence network up and down the country was in shambles, including the one at Nur Khan in Rawalpindi. The Sargodha air base took a direct hit and that set bells ringing not only in Islamabad but also in far off Washington DC. Sargodha air-base is cover for Pakistan’s nuclear “assets” with storage for nukes and reinforced concrete tunnels to protect the beasts. What if one took a hard hit?
Conspiracy theories abound. Journalists in Bangladesh are mentioning radiation leak at a nuclear dump in Pakistan. And that the USA has sent a team as also Egypt, their aircraft spotted in the skies above Pakistan after the “ceasefire” went into effect. A top IAF officer denied that India hit the “Kirana Hill” where Pakistan stores its nukes but Pakistani social media is full of people allegedly displaying skin rashes and what have you not.
All because of the Indian Air Force’s dominance of the skies; its power-play and the near total destruction of Pakistan’s air defense system, Pakistan’s pock-marked air-bases are proof of just how close Pakistan was to losing its air force. Pakistan’s air-bases are littered with big holes on the rooftops of structures within their compounds, victims of sustained Indian drone attacks. Such evidence can be seen in Lahore and in Karachi, as well.
India’s top generals, admirals and IAF officers said “believe you me”, Lahore’s air defense system is beyond repair. The Indian Air Force went about escalating and, in the process, Pakistan’s attempts to escalate weren’t even noticed! “Any attacks from Pakistan will be met with a very, very firm response” was followed to the ‘t’ without any “ifs and buts.”
India used the S-400 Triumf air defence systems with “loitering ammunition” to counter Pakistani misadventures. The Indian Air Force went about playing its role in Operation Sindoor like fish in water though it was the open sky where the IAF went on a romp with precision strikes on terrorist dens, both in Pakistan and in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, fitting revenge for Pahalgam.
Something which Pakistani generals will take to their graves is that this was the first time since 1971 that Pakistan’s Punjab province was attacked and the majority of Pakistan’s army is Punjabi. Attacks on targets in India by drone and the occasional missile included Awantipura, Srinagar, Jammu, Pathankot, Amritsar, Kapurthala, Jalandhar, Ludhiana, Adampur, Bathinda, Chandigarh, Nal, Phalodi, Uttarlai, and Bhuj.
All of them are bases for fighter jets and military transport aircraft situated in northern and Western India. But India’s dominance in air defence prevailed and the enemy drones and missiles were destroyed by the “Integrated Counter Unmanned Aerial System.” The debris of the slain drones and missiles were picked up the day after, the majority of the drones of Turkey-origin.
India maintains that its “measured, non-escalatory and proportionate” strikes won the day on all of the four days the “war” stretched and that the Pahalgam terror attack was avenged without much fuss. The Indian Air Force pre-empted and deterred cross-border assaults with comparative ease. Pakistan’s air bases stood no chance to India’s air dominance.
India continues to maintain that the IAF did not target Pakistan’s military bases, only the terror infrastructure in the enemy country. The warning for Pakistan is in the statement of Prime Minister Narendra Modi that the “understanding to pause” will remain only till Pakistan decides on another Pahalgam-type terror attack. If that happens, all bets are off and the Indian Air Force will be back to shortening the length of Pakistan’s surviving air-bases. (IPA Service)
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