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Inside story of attack on Balakot — from IAF officer who planned and executed it

A total of 16 aircraft, six each armed with Spice 2000 and Crystal Maze missiles, flew into PoK and struck Balakot terror camp while 4 remained in Indian territory as back-up.

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New Delhi: At about 0115 hours on February 26, 2019, 20 fully armed Mirage 2000 fighter aircraft took off, one by one in quick succession, from the runway and taxiway of the Air Force Station at Gwalior.

They flew towards Bareilly and tanked up mid-air, then headed towards Jammu and Kashmir.

At about 0345 hours, the fighters, which were flying in the cover of mountains to escape a Pakistani SAAB Airborne Warning and Control aircraft, crossed the LoC at 30,000 feet.

While 16 aircraft crossed into PoK — including four for escort duties — four others stayed behind as back-up.

Five Israeli-made Spice 2000 bombs were released about 15 km into PoK, which struck the Jaish-e-Mohammed camp in Balakot, and the fighters made their way back to an airfield in the Western Sector.

However, four Mirages — armed with Mica RF and IR air-to-air missiles — stayed back until the other 12 aircraft made their way back into Indian airspace, lest Pakistan fighters engaged.

The entire ops, from the aircraft entering PoK and landing back in India, lasted about 21 minutes.

“The choice of target and execution came with a lot of planning and intelligence inputs. It was important to send a message to Pakistan that India will not tolerate any more attacks like Pulwama,” Air Marshal Hari Kumar, the man who planned and executed the Balakot air strike, told ThePrint.

The phone call on February 14

At about 1515 hours on 14 February, a suicide bomber rammed his explosives-laden SUV into a convoy of the CRPF in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pulwama, killing 40 personnel.

“At about 1800 hours, the Air Force chief called me and asked if I was ready. We both knew that the government would not take this audacious attack lying down. I replied saying that I was ready,” said Air Marshal Kumar, who was the then Air Officer Commanding in Chief (AOC-IN-C) of the critical Western Air Command and was scheduled to retire that month-end after turning 60.

Breaking his silence for the first time since the Balakot air strike, the officer told ThePrint that the following morning Air Force chief Air Chief Marshal B.S. Dhanoa drove down to Western Air Command near the Cantonment to discuss the possible options and plans.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had called for a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Security at 9 am on 16 February.

Later it was decided that the IAF will carry out the strike since the Pakistan Army had put itself on high alert fearing a repeat of the 2016 surgical strike by ground elements.


Also read: How a woman officer helped IAF hit back when Pakistani jets targeted India after Balakot


The critical meeting on 18 February

On the morning of 18 February, National Security Advisor Ajit Doval called for a meeting that was attended by the chiefs of the Army, IAF, Navy and the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW). Attending the meeting was also key RAW operational man Samant Goel, who now heads the external intelligence agency.

There were highly credible intelligence inputs that Pakistan had withdrawn terrorists from launchpads and training camps at the LoC and moved them into centres located deeper.

“The Balakot camp was the perfect target. It was on a hilltop and there were no civilians nearby, which meant there would be no collateral damage. Moreover, since it was not a madrasa, this meant that there won’t be any children. Only large number of terrorists were there,” Air Marshal Kumar said.

It was at this meeting that the IAF was given the target and the go-ahead to plan.

Secrecy was top most concern

Only a few in the IAF knew about the impending attack. Balakot was the first time that the IAF was being used to attack outside Indian territory after the 1971 War.

“Secrecy was the utmost important thing because surprise is always the biggest factor in an attack,” said Air Marshal Kumar, who was in the midst of farewell dinners and packing, while planning the strike.

He said that only four officers were involved in the initial planning, including him and the Air Force chief.

Such was the secrecy that even though the aircraft flew out of the Gwalior base, which falls under Central Air Command, the AOC-in-C of the Command was not aware of the ops until just a few hours before the fighters actually took off.

Air Marshal Kumar briefed the pilots in person about the operation when he dashed to Gwalior under the garb of a farewell dinner.

To ensure that no eyebrows were raised over the sudden activity in Gwalior, an inspection by Directorate of Air Staff Inspection (DASI), an official inspecting body of the IAF, was ordered.

Anytime a DASI has to be done, the entire base goes on a complete overdrive to ensure that everything is in place.

“Because of DASI, nobody felt anything wrong with the sudden activity at the Gwalior Base,” Air Marshal Kumar said, adding it was ensured that no communication was carried out over unsecured channels, including mobile phones.

To keep Pakistan guessing, the Western Air Command also advanced the timing of an exercise.


Also read: How Pakistan planned to hit India back for Balakot — the mission, the fighters, the tactics


Balakot strike was first practised on the simulator

The IAF had selected the 900-kg Spice 2000 penetration bomb and Crystal Maze missiles for the operation.

Just like in actual ops, the highly accurate Spice 2000 was pre-fed with GPS coordinates and an image of the Balakot camp on the simulator.

The Spice 2000 uses a Digital Seen Matching Area Correlator (DSMAC) technology, which automatically matches the target as it zooms in, with the image that has been pre-fed, besides the GPS coordinates.

The hit on the simulator was a success. But for a proper battlefield damage assessment, the IAF had also intended to fire the Crystal Maze that comes with a camera that relays back live feed of the target as it closes in until the actual hit.

However, the missile could not be fired due to certain firing protocols that has been changed now.

Last year, ThePrint had accessed classified high-resolution military satellite images procured from friendly countries which showed that at least two JeM structures were hit by the IAF in Balakot.

Pakistan was hoodwinked as Mirages entered PoK

With some media speculation taking place about the possible options before the government, a deliberate attempt was made to ensure that everything looked normal.

So, a farewell that was planned for Air Marshal Kumar went off as scheduled. It took place on 25 February at the sprawling Akash mess in Delhi where besides Air Chief Marshal Dhanoa, 80 other senior officers were in attendance.

“Due to a lot of speculation on TV channels and the social media, Pakistan had also started focusing on the possibility of an air strike,” Air Marshal Kumar said. At that time, speculation was deliberately spread that the JeM headquarters in Bahawalpur could be an option.

“When the Mirages were nearing the LoC, the Pakistani SAAB AWACS, which was in the air, seemed to have picked up the fighters and two Pakistani aircraft was scrambled,” Air Marshal Kumar said.

At that time, a group of Jaguars in the Rajasthan sector was asked to move towards the border, giving the impression that the aircraft was headed to Bahawalpur.

The Pakistani AWACS quickly moved further away and the F-16 fighters that had been scrambled were diverted to that location along with others.

“It was at this moment when the Mirages entered and did their job well,” Air Marshal Kumar said.


Also read: Pakistan subjected Wing Commander Abhinandan to loud music & bright lights to break him


 

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24 COMMENTS

  1. Our 16 jets include sukhios, mirages or awacs stealthly entered deep inside Pakistan about 60 km, hit their target and came back safely that shows the capability iaf… Pakistan can’t do operation like that because they are not capable of doing that.

  2. It looks funny that the Indians talk about Ballakot and never mention Abhinandan and Pakistan response. Because it is a shame for them..”THE TEA IS FANTASTIC”…

    • Its funny that Pakistan never mentions Wing Commander Shahzaz Ud Din, who lost his life. After all its Pakistan who doesnt take soldiers bodies in Kargil or leave its students to die in Wuhan

      • O so please tell us whose this Shahzud din .Indian media is good at blufffing own population ,they still think they’ve shot down an F16 ,if you really want an evidence,ask the US dear dudes ,pity you lost a SU 30 and a Mig .Losers

        • Loook who’s talking. Ever tried to go through the history ? Ever read about the years 1965, 1971, 1999 and many more
          Rafales are here baby
          F16 would be crumbling into pieces

          • I suggest you christian the Rafales to the Hindu name of “Abhinandan” because it was his sacrifice that forced the honest Indian establishment to ignore the corruption scandals in the Rafale deal and go ahead with purchasing them. After all the Pakistani Airforce bit IAF so hard that they went “Helter Skelter,” to purchase these jets. If however the MIG 21 Bison was so good a slayer of F16s then what was the need??????????????????????????????????????

  3. Bahi sidhi bat hamne unki mar li..ab vo kahe ki dhakka diya ya kewal chua…jo bhi kahe dard ka ahsas to unhe hi he…nahi to 27 feb ko vo apni mausi se milne thodi aaye the loc pe.

  4. There are total of 300 terrorists killed….. I am a Pakistani and i know 300 terrorists killed…..180 Black aunts and about 119 black spiders were also found dead. Their head named as “black crow” was also killed….. So yes guys india is telling you truth……. Because tea is fantastic :-p

  5. Proud of our armed forces. You put the fear if God in those dirty minds. No government had shown this sort of guts and this is the biggest plus point of Modi, take the bull by the horns.

  6. 300,200,100,the actual number will never be known..ignore the HMs penchant for the hyperbole. What is important is that a strong message has been sent… & has been received too. The facility has been decimated. The IAF did what needed to be done. Well done.

    • Pakistan Air Force capability evaluated by world your 16 jets just came back safely without hitting any targets.
      Read as follows what international news reports?
      Indian fighter jets carried out strikes against targets inside undisputed Pakistani territory, but open-source evidence suggested that the strike was unsuccessful
      Martin Howell; Gerry Doyle; Simon Scarr (5 March 2019), Satellite images show buildings still standing at Indian bombing site, Reuters The images produced by Planet Labs Inc, a San Francisco-based private satellite operator, show at least six buildings on the madrasa site on March 4, six days after the airstrike. … There are no discernible holes in the roofs of buildings, no signs of scorching, blown-out walls, displaced trees around the madrasa or other signs of an aerial attack.
      During the dogfight, when Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman crossed the LoC while chasing a fleeing Pakistani jet, the officer repeatedly shouted “turn cold, turn cold”. But Abhinandan could not hear anything inside his Bison, as Pakistan had jammed radio frequencies.This proves following statement from ISPR, Pakistan
      Quote
      Capabilities of Pak Air Force:
      Next day, our air force, while staying within our own airspace, took four targets in India-occupied Kashmir … Being a responsible country, we could have caused damage even to the military installations or human life … But we had to show our will, capability and resolve.”
      So what we did — we first chose the targets, and when the targets were locked by the aircraft, we shifted the point of impact to a safe distance where there was no infrastructure or human life, meaning thereby that we wanted to tell Indians that we had the capability to hit that military target, but in the interest of peace in the region we are only showing you our capability,” Ghafoor said. He added that Pakistan had the footage of this operation
      On 10 April 2019, some international journalists, who were taken to the Jaba hilltop in a tightly controlled trip arranged by Pakistani government, found the largest building of the site to show no evidence of damage or recent rebuilding.[
      Western diplomats in Islamabad also said they did not believe the Indian air force hit a militant camp
      New York Times. 5 February 2019. Western security officials have raised questions about the existence of a large-scale training camp, saying that Pakistan no longer runs such camps. but a report released by the United Nations also disclosed the presence of a significant number of terrorist groups in Kerala, Karnataka and Assam. Hence now India is safe heaven for Terrorist and not Pakistan.
      US Scholar Christine Fair Says: Indian Air Force Did Not Shoot Down Pak F-16 in Balakot Aftermath,
      An Indian Air Force pilot found himself in a dogfight last week (on February 28 2019) with a warplane from the Pakistani Air Force, and ended up a prisoner behind enemy lines for a brief time.
      The pilot made it home in one piece, however bruised and shaken, but the plane, an aging Soviet-era MiG-21, was less lucky.
      The aerial clash, the first by the South Asian rivals in nearly five decades, was a rare test for the Indian military — and it left observers a bit dumbfounded (make somebody temporarily speechless). While the challenges faced by the India’s armed forces are no secret, its loss of a plane last week to a country whose military is about half the size and receives a quarter of the funding was still telling.
      (Bloomberg) — India’s statement that its air force shot down one of Pakistan’s U.S.-built F-16 aircraft during a military flare up in late February appears untrue, according to a report by Washington, D.C.-based Foreign Policy magazine, which cited two U.S. defense officials it didn’t identify.
      Fair, a professor of security studies at Georgetown University who has spent many years researching in Pakistan, stirred up a heated debate at the Military Literature Festival in Chandigarh on Saturday when she went on to assert that she did not believe India shot down an F-16 fighter during the dogfight between Indian and Pakistani jets in the aftermath of the Indian airstrikes over Balakot.
      She, however, questioned the IAF’s narrative about the incident, saying that it is not based on an empirical body of facts but dictated more by “things deployed by politicians to win elections…. The world outside of India does not see things the way they were said here today.

    • Plz read real story from International media and not godi mefia or Pakistani Media
      Indian fighter jets carried out strikes against targets inside undisputed Pakistani territory, but open-source evidence suggested that the strike was unsuccessful
      Martin Howell; Gerry Doyle; Simon Scarr (5 March 2019), Satellite images show buildings still standing at Indian bombing site, Reuters Quote: “The images produced by Planet Labs Inc, a San Francisco-based private satellite operator, show at least six buildings on the madrasa site on March 4, six days after the airstrike. … There are no discernible holes in the roofs of buildings, no signs of scorching, blown-out walls, displaced trees around the madrasa or other signs of an aerial attack.
      During the dogfight, when Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman crossed the LoC while chasing a fleeing Pakistani jet, the officer repeatedly shouted “turn cold, turn cold”. But Abhinandan could not hear anything inside his Bison, as Pakistan had jammed radio frequencies.This proves following statement from ISPR, Pakistan
      Quote
      Next day, our air force, while staying within our own airspace, took four targets in India-occupied Kashmir … Being a responsible country, we could have caused damage even to the military installations or human life … But we had to show our will, capability and resolve.”
      So what we did — we first chose the targets, and when the targets were locked by the aircraft, we shifted the point of impact to a safe distance where there was no infrastructure or human life, meaning thereby that we wanted to tell Indians that we had the capability to hit that military target, but in the interest of peace in the region we are only showing you our capability,” Ghafoor said. He added that Pakistan had the footage of this operation
      On 10 April 2019, some international journalists, who were taken to the Jaba hilltop in a tightly controlled trip arranged by Pakistani government, found the largest building of the site to show no evidence of damage or recent rebuilding.[
      Western diplomats in Islamabad also said they did not believe the Indian air force hit a militant camp
      New York Times. 5 February 2019. Western security officials have raised questions about the existence of a large-scale training camp, saying that Pakistan no longer runs such camps. but a report released by the United Nations also disclosed the presence of a significant number of terrorist groups in Kerala, Karnataka and Assam. Hence now India is safe heaven for Terrorist and not Pakistan.

    • Nope your terrorists brothers were also hit, there are many witnesses who said bodies were transferred from there. I know deep down you regret the death of your terrorist brothers, but alas!

    • To fir tere gafure ko dard kyu hua….27 ko kyu apne jet LC pe bheje…kyu gafoora uchal ke bola ki do jet giraye..do pilot captured…dusra kaha gya ..apni khala ke ghar..teri sarkar or army ne aaj tak kabhi sach bola he….history me bhi 1971 ka war tum jeete as per ur govt theory fir bangladesh kese bana….93000 fauji jo yaha delhi meerut road bana kar gye vo kon the…hai koi jawab.

  7. Italian war journalist had confirmed it that after this attack some 269 terrorist were killed and there was big chance that Jem Chief was also killed.

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