India-Pakistan Conflict: Operation Sindoor, 7 to 10 May 2025, First Impressions
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Analysis
By Namit Verma
The India Pakistan engagement beginning May 7, 2025 and culminating in the Ceasefire on May 10, 2025 is not merely about Operation Sindoor launched by the unified Tri-Services Command of India and the retaliatory Operation Bunyan-un-Marsoos launched by Pakistan; it is about the undeclared war in the sub-continent which has put the world on alert: the practice and rules of warcraft have changed. It is also about the massacre of innocent tourists at Pahalgam on April 22 and the mind games being played in the security establishments in both countries. It is about the see-saw fortunes of both sides measured on the yardstick of Intelligence, or the lack of it.
On 7 May 2025, India targeted nine locations housing Terrorists and Terror Infrastructure across Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir and Pakistan itself. The Indian Air Force hit targets across the Line of Control and the International Border using French-made SCALP-EG missiles and Extended Range Air to Ground Highly Agile Modular Munition, the AASM HAMMER. Israeli-engineered Loitering Ammunitions were also used in these attacks, which were orchestrated from within Indian Airspace using high-altitude launch platforms of the Indian Air Force, including Rafale, SU-30 MKI and MiG-29 aircraft.
Pakistan retaliated within half an hour, scoring hits on Indian aircraft airborne inside Indian Territory. The somewhat delayed response is explained by the back-and-forth communication between Islamabad and Beijing and the compulsory wait for the Chinese Targeting Satellites to get into position. Memphis Barker, writing in The Telegraph, reported on the following day, “The PL-15 didn’t come with radar—it came with AI-guided silence.... The Pakistani Air Force, aided by Chinese targeting satellites and AWACS, executed a sensor-fusion kill…. India knew: if one Rafale can fall, so can five. That’s why the fleet was grounded. That’s why they stay 300 km away from the border…. The implications are enormous…. Western analysts are stunned. French defense contracts are rattled.”1
Memphis Barker mentions, “even Bloomberg wrote it: this is a live demonstration of Chinese-Pakistani integrated warfare.”2 Yet, nobody has asked the Swedes, does their agreement with Pakistan or the end-use commitment certificate issued by Pakistan allow transferring systemic control of the SAAB 2000 Erieye AEW&C platform to the Chinese?
Similarly, nobody has as yet confronted the Chinese with reports that the office of the Chinese Ambassador to Pakistan Jiang Zaidong was the nerve centre of the C4ISR — Command, Control, Communication, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance — integrated combat system used against the Indian Air Force on May 7, 2025.
Barker’s observation, “the IAF now flies 300 km behind its own borders,”3 proved premature.
“Balakot 2.0? It will not happen. Not in this sky.”4 This surmise proved to be wrong, fatally so for the Pakistanis who were gloating over the Western media recognition of their early and partial success: the SAAB 2000 Erieye “capable of detecting fighter sized targets at 350 kms and operating in dense electronic warfare environment …. fleet’s expansion to 9 aircraft by 2024 gives Pakistan a numerical edge over India’s 5-AEW&C platforms. The Erieye’s role as a force multiplier providing real time battlefield awareness and coordination has reshaped Pakistan’s air strategy, enabling it to counter India’s larger Air Force with a fleet of over 800 combat aircrafts with a fleet of approximately 350.5
The IAF was aware of Pakistan’s superior advance warning capabilities. Doordarshan reported as recently as March 27, 2025, that “the acquisition of more AEW&C systems are essential for countering regional threats. Both China and Pakistan have been extending their AEW&C fleets and India must match and surpass their capabilities to maintain its strategic advantage.6 It was merely unprepared for hands-on Chinese participation in Pakistan’s military operations.
The willingness of the Indian Tri-Services Team and the Political Leadership at the highest level to learn from the reverses suffered and then to improvise, made it possible to overcome serious information anomalies and crippling Intelligence Failure, even sabotage; and to secretly make mid-course corrections.
Certainly, there was an almost 48-hour interregnum when doubts and fears must have reigned, yet calm determination of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, as he offered critical leadership to the military operation, doing away with counterproductive intermediate reporting and command hierarchies, enabled formulation and execution of a strictly need to know basis revised Operation Sindoor.
The Tri-Services Staff and the Indian political dispensation led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh rose to the occasion and devised the next steps to regain dominance in the ongoing conflict and the region: an alternate assault strategy, i.e., missile warfare. This was kept under wraps, even some seniormost officials were not invited to these deliberations and kept in the dark about what was being planned.
Whispers in senior Defence circles are abuzz about an unauthorised cross-border conversation being intercepted on the evening of May 8: talk of temperatures now abating and after a suitable fix with pre-agreed moves on both sides, peace and status quo could once again be established. Prominent Think Tanks in New Delhi were also orchestrated to build a consensus that adequate revenge had been exacted for the Pahalgam killings and that it was time to re-establish the peace with both countries, claiming victory in their domestic narratives; but this was not to be. Kamel Amin Thaabeth was in the eye of the storm, and the Services teams insisted on not sharing details with him.7
Fresh information sought about the capabilities of Chinese PL-15E versions, ISRO tracked Chinese satellites, fresh calculations made; the Indian Air Force would fly again, albeit remain well inside Indian airspace and be equipped with longer range missiles. Source code problems meant that indigenously produced missiles could not be fitted on the Rafale, so the SU30MK would fire the BrahMos.
Those talking match-fixing peace with Pakistan were encouraged, if only to keep them away from the War Room. Pakistan may even have been encouraged to go through with an intimidation attack endorsing the status quoist peacenik Think Tanks assessment on the necessity of climbing down in the face of Pakistan’s nuclear capabilities: blackmail; fortunately, the Prime Minister refused to be intimidated and the Service Chiefs found a way around Pakistan’s nuclear deterrent.
On May 10, at 02:00 AM, Pakistan attacked Air Bases in Aadampur and in Punjab, justifying Indian retaliation under the revised Operation Sindoor. Pre-emptive missile strikes targeted Pakistani Air Bases, including entrances to aircraft and critical weapons storage facilities, hangars and AEW&C aircrafts, rendering them unusable. PAF aircraft were no longer capable of getting airborne, their networked firing capacity stood entirely negated.
As Pakistan struggled to continue to launch drones, these were successfully neutralized by Indian satellite networked loitering munitions, saving on the ammo of the S400s. The Chinese Pakistani combined hand had been comprehensively outplayed.
Then came the news of radiation leaks from key sites. The Indian Air Force formally declared that it had not been their intention to target nuclear resources, that was a bonus. Apparently, the Indian strategy war aimed at denying the Pakistanis the opportunity and capability to launch their nuclear assets; in this the Indian strikes on the morning of May 10 had succeeded beyond conception.
A desperate Pakistan was forced to sue for peace. The nuclear implications, even now under wraps, elicited hurried American intervention. In the world of strategic secrets, new theories surfaced, some going out of the well-trodden path and assigning ownership of key nuclear assets in the frontline state of Pakistan to the United States.
Prime Minister Modi did not mince words when he said, it was India’s intention to neutralize the Nuclear Blackmail which had allowed the terror-sponsoring state of Pakistan to flout international norms for decades.8
All the usual suspects with a vested interest in undermining India with the help of rogue Pakistan showed up, trying to press their claims for mediation. Notably Erdogan’s Turkey, which had only days before voiced support for the terror sponsoring Pakis, became active at a global level, lobbying for an exit route for Pakistan. Turkey was exposed as a secret participant in this orchestrated near-war against India. The extent of the backlash against Turkey in the public arena was immense, and the Legion of Bureaucrat Sons was forced to make a hasty exit, lest their parents’ decision-making history come under the spotlight.
The junior Foreign Minister of one of the key investors in the Islamic Nuclear Bomb arrived at the dead of night without any prior announcement about this visit having been made by the Indian Ministry of External Affairs!9 The presumption of that country that it could intervene and seek concessions for Pakistan were trashed: they are in a state of shock, their key assets and once all-powerful allies inside the Indian establishment failed to endorse their peace proposals for fear of ever-burgeoning exposure of their multiple loyalties.
The Indo-Pak engagement of May 7 to 10 offers new insights into the future of warcraft; that is certainly of note for the entire world. Decidedly, the age of non-stealth aircraft is at an end in any serious warfare involving major military combatants. Investments in stealth-equipped fleets also remain a hazardous venture given the reality of satellite tracking. The late Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defence Initiative is now coming to the fore, limiting the role of all other forms of warfare. As experts have repeatedly noted, neither India nor Pakistan demonstrated any impulse to deploy ground forces during these 4 days, despite the ground forces being at the ready with talk of engaging PoK hanging in the air.
For India, a key takeaway from the response to Pahalgam has been the liberation and rise of the Services establishment over the Security establishment. Questions are being asked about how and why critical decisions hurting India’s preparedness for such an eventuality were pushed through repeatedly. Was it mere unfamiliarity with the subject matter amongst the police bureaucracy lording it over the defence forces, or was there more to it: a question of intent?
The security establishment’s reticense for any serious action seems to have got the defence establishment’s goat, unleashing a spate of questions about claims and propaganda flooding the nation over the last two decades. Questions about ISI personnel sitting with VVIPs on Rajpath during the Republic Day Parade in 2015 have gone viral, as have stories of a critical shootout episode in Chanakyapuri between terrorists and law enforcement sometime around 2004-05.
Between April 22 and May 7, 2025, the Service Chiefs had to overcome very significant forces in the Union Government of India, which had thrown a cordon around the Prime Minister and sought to prevent Operation Sindoor or any similar escalation with Pakistan. These forces had tabled several opinion papers from three leading Strategic Think Tanks close to a flamboyant Security Czar, advising against any major escalation with Pakistan despite the Pahalgam massacre. It was only after the Service Chiefs got an unhindered person-to-person interview with the Prime Minister that they managed to communicate that, equipment shortage and other hurdles notwithstanding, the Defence Services were raring to go and avenge the Phalgam Attack victims.
Apparently, the only way to resolve the deadlock then had been for Prime Minister Modi to ask Defence Minister Rajnath Singh to take the lead and declare that the Defence Service Chiefs had carte blanche to decide how to go about administering India’s retribution on Pakistan. As things turned out, they certainly did a great job, despite very adverse circumstances.
Even now, it may be too early to reach definitive conclusions. The spokesperson for the Indian Prime Minister’s ruling Bhartiya Janata Party10 and very recently, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh11 have gone on record to say that Operation Sindoor is ongoing, that it is not yet over. The next few days are likely to show what exactly that might mean and what it augurs for India’s Defence Policy and the Security set-up at home.
Namit Verma is a Former Managing Editor of Security Controls, India's only major Security and Defence magazine in the late 1980s and early 1990s, He also served as the Founding President of The Fairplay League, which shaped Indian policy in refusing to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in 1996. He was instrumental in highlighting double standards on narcotics prohibition and enforcement inside the United State Department of State and the US Department of Justice; his sustained activism led to the eventual recall and termination from service of US Ambassador to India Frank G Wisner. Commissioned by the late Rajiv Gandhi to investigate and report on the Role of the Narcotics Drug Trade in reshaping the global polity, his insights into global strategic manoeuvres remains unparalleled, even if largely silent in recent years.
1 The Telegraph, May 8, 2025: How China helped Pakistan shoot down Indian fighter jets https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/05/08/how-china-helped-pakistan-shoot-down-indian-fighter-jets/
2 Ibid
3 Ibid
4 Ibid
5 European Defence, May 9, 2025: How Sweden’s Erieye AWACS Transformed Pakistan’s Air Power Against India https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=508J-ougyIg
6 DD India, March 27, 2025: India’s Air Superiority Soars with New AEW&C Systems | Defence Dynamics https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZW9oOXAHwQ
7 Note: Kamel Amin Thaabeth is the name that Israeli spy Eli Cohen had assumed in Syria, where he went on to become Syrian President Amin al-Hafez’s most trusted colleague, before being caught and hanged in 1965.
8 The Hindu, May 13, 2025: India will not tolerate any 'nuclear blackmail': PM Modi https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LntVKHCWxUg
9 CNBC TV18, May 8, 2025: India Pakistan conflict: Saudi junior foreign minister in Delhi on unannounced visit https://www.cnbctv18.com/india/india-pakistan-conflict-saudi-arabia-junior-foreign-minister-adel-aljubeir-in-new-delhi-met-s-jaishankar-on-unannounced-visit-19601219.htm
10 Hindustan Times, May 15, 2025: Operation Sindoor still not over, refrain from asking ‘unwanted’ questions: BJP to Opposition https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/operation-sindoor-still-not-over-refrain-from-asking-unwanted-questions-bjp-to-opposition-101747240292416.html
11 WION, May 16, 2025: Rajnath Singh Assures 'Operation Sindoor Is Not Yet Over' | GRAVITAS https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kC7BLU1q5Q
