Less than 50 weapons fired by IAF forced Pakistan to call for ending conflict: Air Marshal Tiwari

New Delhi: The Indian Air Force fired less than 50 weapons on carefully chosen Pakistani targets to compel Islamabad to request for a ceasefire, a top IAF official said on Saturday, disclosing more details on Operation Sindoor.

“We hit them so hard, practically by mid-day they were ready to talk to us. The key takeaway was that with less than 50 weapons, we achieved conflict termination. It has not happened before. We made every weapon count,” IAF Vice Chief Air Marshal Narmdeshwar Tiwari said addressing a defence conclave.

Air Marshal Tiwari said some of the targets hit by the IAF during Operation Sindoor, were not attacked even during the 1971 war.

India launched Operation Sindoor on May 7, targeting nine specific terrorist infrastructures in territories controlled by Pakistan in response to the Pahalgam terror attack.

Pakistan retaliated with a full fledged military strike along the western front from Jammu and Kashmir to Gujarat. India responded with an intense air raid, which led to the end of the four days of conflict on May 10.

"We expected a response and still kept it calibrated. We engaged only military targets. But when the main attack came on the night of May 9-10, that was the time we decided that we needed to go and send the right message. We hit them pan-front," Air Marshal Tiwari said.

"There were targets which were not even taken out during the 1971 war. That is the kind of extent and damage to capability that we had caused to them," he said, adding that the IAF restricted its strikes to only military targets.

In the past, officials pointed out that India’s air operations were targeted at nine Pakistani military sites including critical airfields like Sargodha, Rahimyar Khan, Chaklala and Jacocobad.

Earlier this month, Chief of the Air Staff Air Chief Marshal A P Singh said IAF shot down five Pakistani combat jets and one large intelligence gathering aircraft during the air raid.

In his address, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said last week’s successful trial of an integrated air defence system by the Defence Research and Development Organisation was the first step in the Sudarshan Chakra mission.

Singh said the new weapon would provide complete aerial protection to critical locations across the country within the next decade, using both defensive and offensive technologies.

DRDO’s Integrated Air Defence Weapon System combines three weapons: a quick reaction surface to air missiles (QRSAM), advanced very short range air defence system (VSHORADS) missiles and a high-power laser-based directed energy weapon (DEW) for killing the drones.

A more advanced version of the missile shield with three long range interceptor ballistic missiles that can hit the targets at a distance of 150 km, 250 km and 350 km is under development and first trial is expected next year.