India conducted pre-dawn aerial strikes on a major Jaish-e-Mohammed terror training facility at Balakot in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa region on Tuesday, breaking free of its self-imposed shackles in countering the cross-border proxy war fuelled by its hostile western neighbour for decades. The strikes came 12 days after the Pulwama terror attack claimed 40 CRPF troopers.

Twelve Mirage-2000 fighters, backed by four Sukhoi-30MKI jets for ‘air defence’ and two AWACS (airborne warning and control systems) aircraft as ‘eyes and ears of the strike package’, fired a mix of long-range Spice-2000 precision-guided bombs and AGM-142 (Popeye-2) missiles to destroy the sprawling Balakot facility, which housed over 300 terrorists, trainers and handlers.
This was the first time after the 1971 Indo-Pak war that IAF fighters deliberately crossed the Line of Control to pound targets. “The initial plan was not to cross the LoC
because the JeM facility is just about 65 km away from there as the crow flies, and our weapons had significant stand-off ranges of 60-80-km,” a top defence source said.

India conducted pre-dawn aerial strikes on a major Jaish-e-Mohammed terror training facility at Balakot in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa region on Tuesday, breaking free of its self-imposed shackles in countering the cross-border proxy war fuelled by its hostile western neighbour for decades. The strikes came 12 days after the Pulwama terror attack claimed 40 CRPF troopers.

Twelve Mirage-2000 fighters, backed by four Sukhoi-30MKI jets for ‘air defence’ and two AWACS (airborne warning and control systems) aircraft as ‘eyes and ears of the strike package’, fired a mix of long-range Spice-2000 precision-guided bombs and AGM-142 (Popeye-2) missiles to destroy the sprawling Balakot facility, which housed over 300 terrorists, trainers and handlers.
This was the first time after the 1971 Indo-Pak war that IAF fighters deliberately crossed the Line of Control to pound targets. “The initial plan was not to cross the LoC
because the JeM facility is just about 65 km away from there as the crow flies, and our weapons had significant stand-off ranges of 60-80-km,” a top defence source said.