After the Indian air-strike in Pakistan, many media sources termed it ‘surgical strike 2.0’ on Pakistan, However, in its press briefing, Ministry of External Affairs called the air-strikes ‘non-military’ preemptive action. In essence, in magnitude, response and scale the Indian Air Force attack on Pakistan was way bigger than a surgical strike.
Many people are terming it as surgical strike 2.0. However, by definition, it was but anything. According to Wikipedia, a surgical strike is a military attack which is intended to damage only a legitimate military target, with no or minimal collateral damage to surrounding structures, vehicles, buildings, or the general public infrastructure and utilities.
Whereas in the pre-emptive attack carried out by the fleet of Mirage 2000 attacked and destroyed a number of targets and unleashed a total of 1000 kg of explosive on Pakistani territory. Speaking of it, Foreign Secretary of India, Vijay Keshav Gokhale, stated, “Credible Intel was received that JeM was planning more suicide attacks in India. In the face of imminent danger, a pre-emptive strike became absolutely necessary”.
Emphasizing on the fact that JeM was targeted specifically, Gokhale continued, “This action was specifically targeted at the JeM camp. We avoided civilian casualties with the selection of the camp. The attack was ‘non-military’ strike which took place in a thickly-forested area”.
As MEA put it, though, in a diplomatically measured way, this was a pre-emptive strike deep inside Pakistan, merely an hour away from military town Abbottabad. This shows the lethal nature of the attack and afterwards finding nowhere to hide, the ‘beloved’ neighbor went into denial mode initially. When ground based surgical strikes in response to the Uri terror attack was carried out, Pakistan then went into denial mode as well. However, later Pakistan Maj General Asif Ghafoor admitted that India carried out air strikes against the neighboring country and also disclosed the location. It goes to prove that the magnitude of this attack is very high.
It seems that it was plain and simple, and daring attack on Pakistan for which Pakistan has no option but to deny it happened at all. The Indian Air Force carried out strikes deep into Pakistan. Balakot is 42 KM away from the PoK Muzzafarabad sector. So, basically, IAF went deep inside Pakistani territory and dropped bombs on Pakistani terror camps. It also means that it has attacked the Pakistani military directly. It is India’s deepest strike against Pakistan since 1971, and IAF jets returned without any casualties completing a successful mission.
With the use of IAF, the Modi government has sent a clear cut message to Pakistan that its adventurism would not go unanswered and India will employ all options on the table to answer in the language which it understands.