IAF Starts Receiving ‘Building Blasters’ Version of Spice-2000 Bombs, First Batch Delivered at Gwalior Airbase

Gwalior is the home base of the Mirage 2000s, which are the only IAF leet that can fire the Spice-2000s

New Delhi: The Indian Air Force (IAF) has started receiving the ‘building blaster’ version of the Israel-made Spice- 2,000 bombs, which were used to carry out February’s Balakot airstrikes.

The first batch of these bombs was delivered at the Gwalior airbase of the IAF, as it is the home base of the Mirage 2000s, which are its only fleet that can fire the Spice-2000s.

In June, the IAF had signed a contract with Israel in June to acquire over 1,000 of these bombs under the emergency procurement powers given by the Narendra Modi government. The contract was signed as the force wanted to acquire the bombs after using them successfully against Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) targets on February 26, an operation that was carried out in retaliation to the February 14 Pulwama suicide attack, in which over 40 personnel of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) were martyred, when a suicide bomber rammed his SUV into their convoy.

The attack was claimed by the JeM.

During the strikes, 12 Mirage 2000s of the IAF crossed the Line of Control (LoC) to hit the Jaish camp in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province.

The development comes amid escalating tensions between India and Pakistan over New Delhi’s revocation of special status to Jammu and Kashmir and Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan’s near-daily threats of ‘nuclear war’ over the issue.

The Spice Bomb, designed by Israeli company Rafael Advanced Defence Systems, is a guidance kit for converting air-droppable unguided bombs into precision-guided bombs.