Imogen Piper, Evan Hill, Maham Javaid, Rick Noack
Indian strikes Saturday on Pakistan damaged runways and structures across at least six airfields, according to a visual analysis by The Washington Post, which experts said were the most significant attacks of their kind in decades of simmering conflict between the South Asian rivals.
The review of more than two dozen satellite images and aftermath videos found that the strikes heavily damaged three hangars, two runways and a pair of mobile buildings used by the air force. Some of the sites hit by India were as deep as 100 miles inside the country.
The strikes marked “the most extensive Indian air attacks on Pakistani military infrastructure since the 1971 war,” according to Walter Ladwig, a senior lecturer in international relations at King’s College London and an expert in South Asian security issues.
“High-profile targets were hit in precision strikes with the aim of severely degrading Pakistan’s offensive and defensive air capabilities,” according to William Goodhind, a geospatial analyst at Contested Ground, a research project that uses satellite imagery to track armed conflict.
Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia non-proliferation program at Middlebury College, assessed that the air bases “suffered some damage, but not of the sort that would disable them.”
After the strikes, India claimed to have hit 11 bases in Pakistan, including the sites where The Post confirmed damage. It characterized its actions as “measured” and “calibrated.”
Pakistan’s chief military spokesperson, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, originally told reporters there had been infrastructure damage to bases, although he did not specify how many. Six members of Pakistan’s air force were killed, the military said Wednesday.
Chaudhry told The Post on Wednesday that Pakistan’s military intercepted most Indian missiles.
“A few managed to sneak in,” he acknowledged. The military confirmed hits on five bases and one civilian airport. Chaudhry said one aircraft suffered “minor damage.” He added that Pakistan has full confidence in its air defenses.
“The satellite evidence is consistent with the claim that the Indian military inflicted meaningful – though in my view not devastating – damage on the Pakistan air force at a number of bases across eastern Pakistan,” said Christopher Clary, an associate professor at the University at Albany and author of a book on the IndiaPakistan rivalry.
The Indian strikes on Saturday prompted swift Pakistani counterstrikes. Islamabad said it struck numerous military targets in its retaliatory attacks, including several air bases in Indian-administered Kashmir and in the Indian state of Punjab. New Delhi has either denied those claims or refused to confirm losses.
India has also made no public comment on Pakistan’s claims to have downed five of its warplanes during an initial wave of strikes on May 7. A Post analysis found at least two Indian fighter jets appear to have crashed during the operation.
The rapid escalation on Saturday alarmed Washington, where officials feared the nuclear-armed powers were dangerously close to all-out war. The fighting ended hours later with the announcement of a ceasefire by President Donald Trump.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said his side had “paused” its operations but was prepared to strike Pakistan again in the event of another militant attack like the one in Indian-administered Kashmir on April 22 that killed 26 civilians and set off the latest round of conflict. New Delhi said the attack was linked to Pakistan; Islamabad denied any involvement and called for an international investigation.
At Nur Khan air base in Rawalpindi, just outside Islamabad, two mobile control centres were destroyed, Goodhind said after reviewing satellite imagery. Video from a parking lot nearby showed smoke billowing from the damaged area. The Nur Khan air base is one of the most important in Pakistan, another military researcher said, because it is the military’s central transport hub. The base is also in close proximity to the Strategic Plans Division, the unit responsible for safeguarding the country’s 170 nuclear warheads – stored in facilities across Pakistan.
The military’s General Headquarters and the Joint Staff Headquarters are also housed in Rawalpindi, near Nur Khan. “Such an attack could have been mistaken as an attempt to destroy the control center of the country,” said the military researcher, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
At the Pakistani air force’s Bholari and Shahbaz air bases, satellite imagery showed severe damage to buildings used as aircraft hangars. A large hole nearly 60 feet wide is visible in the roof of a hangar at Bholari, which experts said was consistent with a missile impact. Debris was strewn across the pavement outside and a wall appeared to have toppled over an adjacent building.
The Bholari hangar typically houses a Saab 2000 Airborne Early Warning and Control System aircraft – a surveillance plane worth tens of millions of dollars – according to the military researcher. It’s unclear if the aircraft was in the hangar at the time of the strike.
At Shahbaz air base, which is used exclusively by the military, satellite imagery showed another large hole in a hangar, over 100 feet wide, and damage to a control tower. To the southeast, at Sukkur Airport, which is used for both civilian and military purposes, another hangar appeared to have been collapsed by a strike and an apparent radar site was destroyed, according to Goodhind.
Indian strikes also left large craters in runways at Mushaf air base and Sheikh Zayed International Airport, according to the imagery review by The Post. At Mushaf, the craters appeared to be fixed or under repair by the day after, according to images from the satellite firms Planet and Maxar.
Five members of the air force were killed at Bholari and one at Mushaf, Pakistan’s military said Wednesday.
Dawn, Pakistan’s English-language newspaper, reported that the Sheikh Zayed airport’s Royal Lounge, named after the late founder of the United Arab Emirates, was damaged significantly.
“Striking so many military facilities in Pakistan proper at one time reflects a deliberate shift,” Ladwig said, noting that India had previously limited its air operations to Kashmir, or to remote parts of Pakistan.
Now, Ladwig said, India is “treating terrorist attacks as grounds for conventional military reprisals.”