New Delhi:
The Air Force carried out strikes against targets near Karachi in Pakistan, Air Marshal AK Bharti, the Director-General of Operations for the IAF indicated in a special briefing Sunday evening.
Air Marshal Bharti told reporters part of the Indian military’s “measured and calibrated” response to Pak aggression – i.e., the drone and missile strikes, and small arms fire and artillery shelling across the Line of Control and international border – was the targeting of military installations, including a surface-to-air missile (SAM) site at Malir Cantonment in Karachi.
Malir Cantt. is a military base about 35km from the city of Karachi.
The Air Force also targeted a radar site in Lahore (likely the Chinese-made HQ-9 knocked by Israeli-made HARPY drones) and another close to Gujranwala in Pak’s Punjab province, he said.
News the Air Force successfully targeted Pak military installations near Karachi follows confirmation Sunday of the Navy’s role in Operation Sindoor – which was India’s military response to the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack, which it had linked to the Pak deep state.
The Navy’s carrier battle groups, submarines, and aviation assets, Vice Admiral AN Pramod said, had been deployed outside the harbour in Karachi to pin down Pak maritime forces.
The Indian Navy, he said, remained in a “deterrent posture with full readiness and capacity to strike select targets at sea and on land, including Karachi, at a time of our choosing”.
This, Vice Admiral Pramod said “compelled Pakistani naval and air units to be in a defensive posture, mostly inside harbours or very close to the coast…” for the duration of the conflict.
Operation Sindoor was a 25-minute precision strike, launched 1.05 am on May 7, against four terrorist camps in Pakistan and five in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. Over 100 terrorists were killed and terror infrastructure was disabled, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh had said.