Bad weather aborted Op Sindoor strike on Skardu: Ex-CDS Chauhan
India had planned to hit Pakistan’s strategically important Skardu airbase during Operation Sindoor last year, former Chief of Defence Staff (CDS)General Anil Chauhan has revealed. However, the strike could not take place due to bad weather, he added. Incidentally, India had bombed this base in the 1971 war.
The airbase is located nearly 180 kms from Kargil in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (POK), and it used this base to push in infiltrators and soldiers into India during the Kargil war.
General Chauhan, who was the CDS during Operation Sindoor, said the mission to hit Skardu had to be aborted at the eleventh hour due to bad weather. A critical strike at Skardu would not only have dealt a massive blow to Pakistan, but also sent a tough message to China, as the military base provides security cover to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.
Giving details, he said Pakistan reached out to India at around 10 am on May 10 for talks. It was around this time that the IAF sought clearance to strike the Sargodha air base. “The Air Chief asked me whether we should strike Sargodha. I said, ‘Go ahead’. I said, ‘Please identify two more targets’. So one of the targets he identified was Skardu,” the former CDS said.
“We gave a yes, but after some time, the weather turned bad over it, and they had to change over to Bholari,” he further said.
Nevertheless, the IAF’s brutal strike on the Bholari air base arguably emerged as the most striking symbol of the May 10 air campaign. Located in Karachi, the Bholari air base, which houses advanced aircraft like JF-17s and F-16s, suffered significant structural damage. Besides, Pakistan also went on to admit that six personnel were killed in the Bholari attack.
Apart from Bholari, 10 other airbases, including Nur Khan, Rafiqui, Murid, Sargodha, Rahim Yar Khan, and Sukkur, bore the brunt of IAF’s BrahMos, SCALP and Rampage missile strikes.
However, the heavily guarded Skardu airfield is a prominent target for India due to its location. It is located in Gilgit-Baltistan, perched along the Indus and is very important for Pakistan due to its proximity to the Line of Control (LoC) and Ladakh. Basically, Skardu is the gateway into Ladakh from the west. It is around 100 km from India’s Leh air base.
Strategically located opposite Kargil, Skardu also functions as the main operating base (MOB) for the Pakistan air force and houses an array of fighter jets and heavy transport aircraft.
There are hardened shelters on both ends of the Skardu runway, which likely house fighter aircraft such as the JF-17 and the Mirage 2000.
Significantly, Skardu is one of the key military bases that provide security and logistics cover to Chinese infrastructure projects being constructed as part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).
Thus, if India had struck Skardu, it would have further added to China’s tensions over security concerns surrounding its investments in Pakistan.
While India could not hit Skardu during Operation Sindoor, it had destroyed the air base in the 1971 conflict. While all the focus was on India’s east, infiltration attempts from Gilgit and Skardu were also a cause of worry.
To push back Pakistani misadventures in the west, the IAF penetrated deep into enemy airspace and bombed the main runway at Skardu. The bombing was carried out during daytime and from the south-eastern direction, taking Pakistan by surprise and dealing a body blow.
During the Kargil War, Pakistan used Skardu to support its army operations as it illegally occupied high-altitude strategic outposts on the Indian side of the LoC.
