'Operation Sindoor': India’s Cross-Border Message Is Loud and Calculated

Pakistan's response to the strikes is perhaps emblematic of its inability to support an all-out war with India.

As per the press briefing on Wednesday morning, India had waited long for Pakistan to take action against the proscribed terrorist entities, before launching these strikes.

(Photo: Kamran Akhter/The Quint)

The Indian Armed Forces launched 'Operation Sindoor' in the intervening night of 6-7 May, striking nine terrorist-related infrastructure in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK) and Pakistan. Notably, the codename “Sindoor” is replete with layered symbolism.

The locations targeted and successfully destroyed are terrorists camps and bases of Lashkar-e-Tayeba (LeT) and its affiliate The Resistance Front (TRF); Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM); and Hizbul Mujahideen in Muzaffarabad, Kotli, Gulpur, Bhimbher, Sialkot, and Chak Amru in PoK.

Also included on this list are the headquarters/training base of the LeT at Muridke (near Lahore) and the headquarters of the JeM in Bahawalpur in Pakistan’s Punjab Province.

A map showing the terrorist camps struck as part of Operation Sindoor in Pakistan and PoK, being displayed during a press conference in New Delhi.

(Photo: PTI)

According to the Ministry of Defence's press release at 1:44 am on 7 May, India’s actions—which didn’t target any Pakistani military facilities—were restrained, focused, measured, and non-escalatory, and aimed solely at holding accountable those responsible for the Pahalgam massacre of 22 April.

The press briefing that followed, based on the findings of India’s intelligence and investigation agencies, accurately attributed the terrible Pahalgam massacre to Pakistan and Pakistani-trained terrorists of TRF, an LeT front, whose aim in the barbaric act was also to disrupt Kashmir’s economy.

As per the briefing, India had waited long for Pakistan to take action against the proscribed terrorist entities, before launching the strikes.

TRF, a front organisation of LeT, is also hosted at Muridke. The JeM HQs at Bahawalpur, which include its operational base at the Jamia Masjid Subhan Allah complex, are home to its founder, terrorist Maulana Masood Azhar.

Although the JeM too is a proscribed entity, its HQ/training base, located just a few kilometres from Pakistan’s 31 Corps, enjoys incidental security from that cantonment. It would be recalled that Azhar was released in exchange for passengers of hijacked IC-814.

Pakistan has confirmed Indian attacks on five locations: two in Pakistan’s Punjab province (Bahawalpur and Muridke) and three in PoK (Muzaffarabad, Kotli, and Bagh). As expected, it condemned “India’s blatant aggression” and threatened to retaliate.

Firing on the Line of Control (LoC) has intensified, with Pakistan targeting forward villages on the Indian side, particularly in Poonch and Rajouri. India is responding suitably to that firing. Both sides have also claimed to have shot down each other’s aircraft, once again proving that “the best fiction is written by nations during a war.”

India’s Strategy

India seems to have adopted a wise strategy:

• Mobilise essential military assets and place them in a state of readiness at appropriate locations.

• Carry out strikes against known terrorist infrastructure using stand-off weapons—such as the SCALP/Storm Shadow air-launched cruise missile (range >250 km), HAMMER smart bombs (range ~50–70 km), and loitering munitions—without entering Pakistani or PoK airspace.

• Adopt a defensive posture, and be ready for any retaliatory actions by Pakistan Armed Forces against India.

• Inflict attrition on any assets attempting to cross into Indian territory or airspace. Notably, defence is the stronger form of warfare, and hence, the Indian Armed Forces will be able to incrementally attrite Pakistan’s Armed Forces, particularly the Pakistan Air Force (PAF), as they endeavour to strike into India. A steady destruction of the PAF will eventually force Pakistan to restrain itself. 

What Next? 

There are two primary reasons which perhaps compel Pakistan to respond to India’s attack:

1. Pakistan’s leadership is still struggling to find legitimacy domestically, after the coerced ouster of former Prime Minister Imran Khan. Hence, it cannot be seen to appear weak by not doing anything.

2. Secondly, the Pakistan Army’s deteriorated image will suffer further if it does nothing.

However, hours after India’s strikes, Pakistan's Defence Minister Khawaja Asif stated that his country’s military is “ready to refrain” from further action, provided India halts its ongoing operations.

This quasi-diplomatic effort aimed at thwarting further escalation is perhaps emblematic of Pakistan’s debilitated economy and its inability to support an escalation or an all-out war with India.

This is good news and Advantage India in view of the fact that in this crisis, there seems to be no external mediator. Since both India and Pakistan are avowed nuclear weapon states, until recently, the US had acted as a sort of ad hoc crisis manager between India and Pakistan.

Now, however, that role has witnessed a decline: from proactive, direct mediation during the 1999 Kargil conflict, to limited intercession in 2019 post-Balakot, to indifference now.

US President Donald Trump’s response, that too after a briefing from India’s NSA Ajit Doval to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, was:

"It's a shame. We just heard about it as we were walking in the doors of the Oval. They've been fighting for a long time.... many, many decades, centuries. I hope it ends very quickly."

Donald Trump

Responding to questions from reporters on 25 April, he had said that both countries “will get it figured out one way or the other.” And it does seem that President Trump has been proved right in placing the responsibility for escalation and de-escalation on the participants in this conflict.

(Kuldip Singh is a retired Brigadier from the Indian Army. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)