India’s Operation Sindoor aims to reshape ties with Pakistan by raising costs for cross-border terrorism, achieving military and psychological objectives.
India set a new normal in dealing with terrorism emanating from Pakistan using Operation Sindoor that is not yet over, people familiar with the matter said on Sunday, adding that New Delhi’s ferocious but proportionate response forced Islamabad’s hand.
India’s actions, which had clear military, political and psychological objectives, made it clear to both Pakistan and international interlocutors that New Delhi’s response to cross-border terrorism will raise costs for backing and financing terror groups based in Pakistan that have been involved in attacks over the decades, the people said.
“The actions taken by India are aimed at creating and setting a new normal in the relationship. It is not business as usual. Pakistan and the world will have to get used to this new normal because India has had enough,” a person said.
The developments came a day after the two countries reached an understanding on halting military actions, after four days of escalating conflict involving drones, missiles and long-range weapons had raised fears of a full-blown war.
Within 15 minutes of concluding the first set of military strikes on terrorist infrastructure at nine locations in Pakistan and Pakistan Occupied Kashmir between 1.04am and 1.30 am on May 7, the Indian Director General of Military Operations (DGMO) informed his Pakistani counterpart that the attacks were directed only at terror groups and the Indian side was ready to talk, the people, familiar with the intricacies of Operation Sindoor, said on condition of anonymity. The first strikes were in response to the April 22 terror attack at Pahalgam in Kashmir.
There was no response from the Pakistani side and the people said Prime Minister Narendra Modi issued clear instructions to the armed forces – India’s retaliation to any action by the Pakistani military should be “bigger and stronger”.
One of the people quoted Modi as saying, “Wahan se goli chalegi, toh yahan se gola chalega (If they fire bullets, we will respond with cannons).”
India achieved the military objective of Operation Sindoor, which was to destroy the targeted terrorist infrastructure, within half an hour of the launch of its strikes on May 7, and the political objective, which was to raise the cost of backing cross-border terrorism, the people added.
Noting that the government has spoken of having a strategy of striking terrorists within Pakistan – or as one person put it, “ghar me ghus ke marenge (kill them in their homes) – the people said this too had been achieved. “The terrorists were struck in the heartland of Pakistan, not at the border,” a second person said.
“The cost of terrorism has increased. The Indus Waters Treaty is linked to the cross-border terrorism and it will be held in abeyance as long as terrorism from Pakistan continues,” the second person said.
The people said the cost for Pakistan’s backing of terrorism will rise proportionately and while terrorism may not end with the latest strikes on groups deep within Pakistan, India will respond to every act of terrorism. The Indian side also called the bluff of Pakistan’s deterrence, and the Line of Control (LoC), the international border or Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal will not protect the terrorists, they said.
The people said these factors set Operation Sindoor – launched in retaliation for the Pahalgam terror attack that killed 26 civilians – apart from the surgical strikes across the Line of Control after the 2016 Uri terror attack and the air strike on Balakot in Pakistan’s Kyber-Pakhtunkhwa province after the 2019 Pulwama suicide bombing that killed 40 Indian troops.
“The Indus Waters Treaty survived three wars and a four-decade-long campaign of cross-border terrorism. Essentially, the point is that Pakistan cannot carry on with cross-border terrorism while expecting cooperation in areas of its own choosing,” the first person said.
After India’s initial strikes on terror infrastructure early on May 7, Pakistan attacked Indian military bases on May 8, 9 and 10, triggering progressively stronger responses from the Indian side that targeted Pakistani military facilities ranging from air defence systems to radar sites and command and control centres, the people said. Pakistan’s “most ambitious and wide-ranging attacks” were on May 10, when they attempted to strike 26 military locations with heavier calibre weapons, even though the Indian side repeatedly said there was no intention to escalate, the people said.
It was then that the Indian side decided to raise the military cost for Pakistan and the armed forces responded with “hellfire” by striking eight of Pakistan’s main airbases, including Chaklala, Rafiqui, Murid, Rahim Yar Khan, Chunian and Sialkot, with precision weapons, the first person said. The damage caused by these strikes was extensive and the runway at the Rahim Yar Khan airbase was devastated, he said.
After four days of intense confrontations involving drones, missiles and long-range weapons, the DGMOs of the two sides reached an understanding on halting military actions on Saturday afternoon.
“The Pakistanis stopped not because the Americans called them and told them to — in very nice English. They stopped because things were falling down on them from the sky. And making a very loud noise,” the second person said.
The people also said that the ceasefire was arrived at on India’s terms and wasn’t forced on New Delhi. The cessation of hostilities was announced by US President Donald Trump around 5.30pm on Saturday and confirmed by India half an hour later, though Pakistan violated the understanding for about three hours on Saturday night. The ceasefire largely held on Sunday.
The strikes and counter-strikes of May 10 showed the stark difference in the technological capabilities and precision weapons of the two sides, and the force of the Indian response showed the Pakistani side that this was not going to be a “winning proposition”, the people said.
The people also explained the rationale behind India’s choice of the nine locations in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) where terrorist infrastructure was targeted, particularly the Jaish-e-Mohammed’s (JeM) main “markaz” or base at Bahawalpur, the Lashkar-e-Taiba’s (LeT) stronghold at Muridke, both in Pakistan’s Punjab province, and bases of groups such as Harkat-ul-Mujahideen and Harkat-ul-Ansar at Muzaffarabad, the capital of PoK.
“One thing that joins all these facilities together is that they are intimately tied to the Pakistani deep state’s complicity with and sponsorship of terrorism over a long period. These facilities, the organisations that they house, the terrorists that are based there, they all have a long track record of activity against India,” the first person said.
The JeM base at Bahawalpur was among the first three targets struck on May 7 and it was hit with the “most potent weapon available”, the people said, recalling JeM founder Masood Azhar’s link to several brazen attacks in India since he formed the group after being freed from an Indian jail along with two terrorists in exchange for the passengers of the hijacked flight IC-814 in 2000. These attacks included the assault on India’s Parliament in December 2001.
The JeM and LeT bases were also chosen because of the long-standing links between these groups and Pakistan’s military and intelligence, especially in the context of terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir and other parts of India, the people said.
In purely psychological terms, the people said, the Indian side wanted to send across the message to the terror groups that “no place is safe”, and India’s armed forces are capable of going deep into “Pakistani territory in the mainland and hitting targets that are identified with their security establishment”.
The people also pointed to the evidence that emerged following the attack on Muridke of senior Pakistani military and civilian officials attending the funeral of people killed at the LeT’s sprawling base on the outskirts of Lahore.
