Crippling strikes on Pak airbases, defences forced it to beg for truce: DGMO
Around 1 pm on May 10, the Director General of Military Operations (DGMO) Lt Gen Rajiv Ghai was in a meeting in New Delhi when an official informed him about a message from his Pakistani counterpart, Major General Kashif Abdullah, saying that the Pakistani officer wanted to speak over the hotline.
Just three days earlier, around 1.30 am on May 7, Lt Gen Ghai had contacted Maj Gen Abdullah to inform him that India had struck nine terror camps across Pakistan as part of Operation Sindoor. Lt Gen Ghai had asked if his counterpart wished to discuss anything further. “He responded with ‘wait’ for our military response,” Lt Gen Ghai said during a media briefing today.
The two DGMOs finally spoke at 3.30 pm on May 10, with Maj Gen Abdullah seeking a “cessation of hostilities”. The shift in the tone of communication between the two military leaders came after India inflicted the most significant military blow to Pakistan since the 1999 Kargil conflict. Government sources said this development might have rewritten the military parity between the two nuclear-armed neighbours, establishing a new normal.
On May 9, Pakistan had launched waves of attacks using approximately 400 drones targeting multiple Indian cities. Against this backdrop, the US had already been urging both countries to de-escalate. In the early hours of May 10, the Indian armed forces unleashed a devastating assault on Pakistan, described by sources as raining down like “hell-fire”.
Yesterday, the IAF informed that damage was caused to Pakistani airbases like Skardu in PoK, Sargodha, Jacobabad, Bholari, Rafiqui, Murid, Nur Khan at Chaklala (Rawalpindi), Rahim Yar Khan, Sukkur and Chunian. Radar sites at Pasrur and the Sialkot aviation base were also targeted.
The sources said the technological and military superiority of the Indian armed forces, coupled with their precision in executing operations, tilted the scales decisively. “Pakistanis realised they were not in the same league. Their air defence systems was not able to intercept these attacks,” the sources said.
What probably triggered the Pakistan’s reaction was India’s strike on the Chaklala airbase, a key installation serving as a central transport hub for Pakistan’s military and home to its air refuelling capabilities, essential for keeping Pakistani fighter jets airborne. The base is located in close proximity to the headquarters of Pakistan’s Strategic Plans Division, the body responsible for overseeing and safeguarding the country’s nuclear arsenal, estimated to consist of around 170 or more warheads.
Today, “The New York Times” cited an unnamed official in a report stating, “Pakistan’s deepest fear is of its nuclear command authority being decapitated. The missile strike on Nur Khan (Chaklala) could have been interpreted as a warning that India could do just that.”
Nation