The question of whether one particular strike was the straw that broke the camel's back and made Pakistan approach the Indian side and push for a ceasefire after Operation Sindoor last year has long been debated. One of the world's foremost aviation historians, analysts and experts may finally have the answer.
Despite the Indian Air Force denying that it had struck Kirana Hills, one of Pakistan's main storage facilities for nuclear weapons and a former nuclear testing site, Tom Cooper is convinced the facility was hit and that "Pakistan was finished by then".
"It's a place you hit when you want to send a clear message without causing, let's put it this way, too much damage. It means, "Listen, guys in Pakistan, we can hit you severely where we want, whenever we want, with as much ammunition as we want. Stop it, finally'," Cooper told NDTV's Shiv Aroor in an exclusive interview on Tuesday.
"And considering the timing of that strike, and when one cross-checks what was happening in the background on the diplomatic scene, how Islamabad was calling Washington, calling New Delhi, and begging for a ceasefire. Of course, it was not literally begging for a ceasefire... But eventually, that was that... It cannot be clearer anymore," he asserted.
'Several Pieces Of Evidence'
Asked what proof he had that the attack actually took place, the aviation expert insisted there was not just one piece of evidence, but several, including videos shot by Pakistanis showing contrails from missiles coming in, diving down, and hitting the hillside. Smoke rising from the radar station of what he described as the 4091st Squadron of the Pakistani Air Force, Cooper said, bolsters this theory.
"And the evidence is so clear that the Indian Air Force hit these radar stations first to disable the Pakistani capability to counter its attack, and then hit at least two entrances to the underground storage facilities. And Kirana Hills is one of the centrepieces of the Pakistani nuclear programme. They have run something like 20-24 non-critical nuclear tests over there. I mean, it's not Disneyland," he said.
"Pakistan was finished by then. Its Operation Bunyan-un-Marsoos (launched in response to Operation Sindoor) had failed. It was blocked by Indian air defence, and then by this massive strike that morning in May," he added.
Cooper said this strike was one of the key reasons he had declared the conflict a clear-cut victory for India.
"You don't target such places without knowing that the enemy or the other side cannot strike back without having absolute certainty," he explained.
The other evidence, Cooper said, came from "personal contacts" in Pakistan who confirmed the facility was hit.
Nuclear Proof
To a question on how he was sure Kirana Hills housed a nuclear facility, Cooper said a bulletin of atomic scientists in the US had described it in that manner, and analysts in India had arrived at the same conclusion.
"It is really amazing what kind of stuff they are finding. So when you find 40 hardened shelters, two maintenance facilities, 50 or more entrances to underground facilities... When you know the history of the site, with its nuclear tests. I mean, again, it is not a fun park. It is a nuclear facility for testing purposes, for storage purposes. There might not be a reactor over there, but it doesn't mean there are no nuclear weapons," he said.
The expert also pointed to Sargodha, one of the Pakistan Air Force's principal facilities, being very close to Kirana Hills. He asked why a squadron of F-16s was being trained for the delivery of nuclear weapons at the base if there was no storage facility nearby.
"What can be a better storage facility in this area than Kirana Hills, with all of its tunnels, hardened shelters, three complexes of ammunition depots and so on?" he argued.
Escalation?
On the possibility of escalation following such a strike, Cooper said the context was important. Pakistan, he highlighted, had fired missiles and other projectiles and sent drones, and all of them were shot down, except for one or two missiles.
"Everything that was sent India's way was shot down. Several Pakistani Air Force jets were shot down. Pilots were killed. So this operation (Bunyan-un-Marsoos) was a complete failure... And then the Indian Air Force launched a counter-strike, hit 12 or 13 air bases, and Pakistan was still trying," Cooper recalled.
"And then came the strike on Kirana Hills. And with this action, you make it clear to the opponent: 'You can't do anything. You are finished. You can fire whatever you like at us, and we are still going to shut down everything coming our way and hit you very hard. And if you continue, we are going to hit you even harder because we can, and you can't,'" he stressed.
This was a big cause of the clear-cut victory, Cooper insisted, and led to Pakistan calling for a ceasefire and India agreeing to a break in the operations.
Weaponry, Integration
On whether specialised aircraft or weapons were needed for the precision strikes on Kirana Hills, Cooper said that was not necessary.
"You had Su-30s launching BrahMos and Rampage - air-launched ballistic missiles. You had Jaguars launching Rampage. You had Rafales launching SCALPs, and so on. This was perfectly enough," he explained.
Cooper was all praise for India's integrated air defence system and said that it had made all the difference. Not only did the system function very well defensively and thwart wave after wave of Pakistani missiles and projectiles, but it also made it possible to go on the offensive very quickly.
"...to simultaneously coordinate such a massive operation by the Indian Air Force on the morning of the 10th and to hit Pakistan that hard. This is something that people are not understanding enough," he maintained.
"So Pakistan can now buy, you know, 200 (Chinese-made) J-20s and whatever else. The Indian air defence system is still good enough to detect this one way or the other, because there's plenty of built-in redundancy in this system. There are so many different radars that one of them would pick it up. And when you detect that, stealth is not stealth anymore," Cooper explained.
Stealth Fighters
This led to the next question, which was whether India's lack of stealth fighters is an issue, considering China already has them.
India's air defence system, Cooper said, has managed to combine indigenous weaponry with those from France, Russia and Israel.
"I've seen dozens of other countries trying to develop such integrated air defence systems and having trouble, or even failing miserably... For example, with the Russian integrated air defence system, there were something like seven or eight different protocols which cannot communicate with each other. The system crashes if you take out one battery or for some other reason," he pointed out.
"But India's system survived everything Pakistan has thrown at it. Now, of course, there's a question of whether if it would perform as well in case of a confrontation with China. I don't know. We'll have to see, because the Chinese also have a very good integrated air defence system. But the fact is, the Indian system is working, and that's what matters. Now it has to be developed even more," he stressed.
Cooper also said he was flummoxed by why the Indian Air Force insisted on denying that it had hit the site when it was so "obvious" it had.
"I mean, this is like denying that the sun is coming up in the east. For whom is that making sense?" he asked.
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