Thursday was a long night; the night of the Generals. Pakistan unleashed its tentative response to India’s lethal precision strikes on 7 May against nine terrorist infrastructure targets across the Line of Control (LoC) and the International Border (IB) in the heart of Punjab, including the infamous dens of Muridke and Bahawalpur. The strikes caused immense hurt and pain to the military state as India escalated the intensity of punishment through Operation Sindoor, compared to the earlier Uri and Balakot reprisals.
Pakistan’s retaliation was targeting 36 military and aviation installations stretching from Leh to Sir Creek with 400 Turkish drones designed to test India’s layered air defence systems. These were accompanied by intense cross border shelling that lit up the blackouts in Jammu and Kashmir (J and K) notably Srinagar, Pathankot and Jammu. While India succeeded in blunting the drone strikes, several civilian and military casualties occurred. Rawalpindi had made a similar futile attempt but on a lower scale on Wednesday night too.
In his interview to the BBC Pakistan Defence Minister Khwaja Asif made a farcical denial of the drone attacks demonstrating Pakistan’s perfection in obfuscation and disinformation that is floating like confetti during Christmas. Indian media is not lagging behind this. As in the Middle East, drones and precision guided missiles are primary weapons of a stand-off war. The Indian Air Force is in the lead along with missile firing units. Not crossing the LoC or the IB does not lower or enhance the legitimacy of offensive strikes but reduces risks of attrition. Pakistan stonewalling acquisitions of drone strikes is crafted to show that its response to Operation Sindoor is still in the making and that it will be delivered at a time and place of its choosing.
India has maintained its domination of the escalation matrix. It is Pakistan which has to make the next move. Pakistan has pledged a ‘one notch up’ retribution . Delhi has changed the terms of escalation post Balakot and served Islamabad with a warning that any misadventure will have consequences. This was not the case during Balakot, where India had announced an end of its operations after the initial strikes. A Pakistani ‘one notch up’ response threatens to attract an Indian counterstrike. So here is the quandary: “Pakistan has to escalate to de-escalate risking an Indian riposte”. Delhi has responded to Rawalpindi’s testing of air defence systems with caution but selectively degraded adversary’s air defences.
Asif told the BBC we did not respond as we did not wish to reveal our air defence locations. This is funny. While avenging Operation Sindoor the General will have to think out of the box in targeting to vindicate Pakistan military’s honour and image. The ball is in Rawalpindi’s court.
