Balakot Airstrike Anniversary: How India’s Mighty IAF Carried Out ‘Operation Bandar’ To Avenge 2019 Pulwama Attack

India received intelligence that the JeM had shifted many in-training terrorists and hardcore operatives, along with their trainers, to the camp, about 20 km from Balakot town.

New Delhi: What can be termed as one of the most precise and pinpointed air strikes in the history of military operations across the globe, the Indian Air Force conducted a pre-dawn operation, described as “non-military” and “preemptive”, in Pakistan’s Balakot striking a five-star resort style camp on a hilltop forest that provided Indian forces with a “sitting duck target” and caught the terrorists completely unawares right in their own den. This IAF operation code named as Operation Bandar.

Today, February 26, marks the fourth Balakot Airstrike anniversary when India pounded Jaish-e-Mohammed’s biggest training camp in Pakistan, killing up to 350 terrorists and trainers who were moved there for their protection after the Pulwama terror attack.

How The Operation Was Conducted (According to a PTI report quoting sources):

• According to the sources, India received intelligence that the JeM had shifted many in-training terrorists and hardcore operatives, along with their trainers, to the camp, about 20 km from Balakot town.
• According to the sources, the camp had facilities for 500 to 700 people and even a swimming pool.
• In a synchronised operation, fighter and other aircraft took off from several air bases in Western and Central commands at about the same time, leaving Pakistani defence officials confused about where they were heading.
• A small group of aircraft broke away from the swarm and headed to Balakot where “the sleeping terrorists were sitting ducks for the Indian bombing”.
• The entire operation, it is learnt, was over in 20 minutes, starting at 3.45 am and ending at 4.05 am.
• “Credible intelligence was received that JeM was attempting another suicide terror attack in various parts of the country, and the fidayeen jihadis were being trained for this purpose,” then Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale told the media.
• In the face of imminent danger, a preemptive strike became “absolutely necessary”, the foreign secretary said.
• “In this operation, a very large number of JeM terrorists, trainers, senior commanders and groups of jihadis who were being trained for fidayeen action were eliminated,” he said, stressing that care was taken to avoid civilian casualties.
• At least 325 terrorists and 25 to 27 trainers were at the camp, sources told PTI.

ABOUT THE FACILITY at BALAKOT:

The facility at Balakot, located in a thick forest on a hilltop far from civilian presence, was headed by Maulana Yousuf Azhar, alias Ustad Ghouri, the brother-in-law of JeM chief Masood Azhar, he said, reading out from a statement.

Sources said the reference was to the town in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, about 80 km from the Line of Control and near Abbotabad where Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden was killed in hiding by covert US forces.

According to sources, terrorists in the Balakot camp were imparted the advanced ‘Daura-e-Khaas’ training in weapons, explosives and field tactics, attack on convoys of security forces, planting and making of IEDs, suicide bombing, rigging vehicles for suicide attacks and survival tactics in high altitudes and extreme-stress situations.

(With Inputs from PTI)