IAF air strike: Mirages took off from Gwalior, not forward base, to retain surprise

NEW DELHI: Fighter jets, mid-air refuellers and early-warning aircraft from at least five airbases closely coordinated to unleash the "strike package" on the Balakot terror facility. The aim was to blow six targets within the facility to smithereens in two waves of firing. "The six were first hit with one wave of weapons. The second wave was executed once the dust settled after the first hit. The battle damage assessment was 100%," a top defence source said here.


On February 16, TOI had reported that precision airstrikes were the government's favoured option for retaliatory action following the Pulwama terror attack.

Four Sukhoi-30MKI "air dominance" fighters from the Bareilly and Halwara airbases were tasked with "an air defence role" for the mission, with an additional number on hot stand-by. "Pakistan scrambled some fighters but they went back after seeing the large IAF formation...they never came close," said the source.

The operation kicked off just after 2 am, with the Mirage-2000s from their home-base of Gwalior taking to the skies during the "graveyard shift". The fighters were not moved to a forward base before the strikes to retain the element of surprise. "ISI informants are active around forward IAF bases on the western front and promptly report unusual fighter activity," said a source.

The Mirage-2000s, which underwent mid-air refuelling by ILyushin-78s based in Agra, also took a circuitous route to the Muzaffarabad sector along the LOC by avoiding congested airspaces like the one over New Delhi.

IAF also deployed a Phalcon AWACS from Agra and an indigenous mini-AWACS from Bathinda to vector the fighters towards the target as well as track Pakistani jets.