By Raju Gopalakrishnan and Xinghui Kok
Singapore (Reuters) -India changed tactics after losses on the first day of conflict with Pakistan earlier this month and established a decisive advantage before the neighbors announced a cease three days later -the fires announced, said India's highest ranking general on Saturday.
The heaviest fights in decades between nuclear armed India and Pakistan was fueled by an attack of April 22 in the Indian Kashmir in which 26 people were killed, most of them tourists. New Delhi blamed the incident to “terrorists” supported by Pakistan, an indictment that was refused by Islamabad.
On May 7, Indian jets bombarded what New Delhi called 'terrorist infrastructure' locations on the border. Pakistan said that it has lowered six Indian planes, including at least three Rafale hunters, in the first collisions.
It was announced -Fires announced on 10 May after bitter fighting in which both parties used fighter jets, rockets, drones and artillery.
General Anil Chauhan, the main personnel of India, said in an interview that India suffered initial losses in the air, but refused to give details.
“What was important is why these losses occurred and what we will do next,” he told Reuters on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue Security Forum in Singapore, referring to the Pakistani claim of downing Jets.
“So we remedied the tactics and then went back to the 7th, 8th and 10th in large numbers to touch air bases deep in Pakistan, penetrated all their anti -aircraft weather with impunity, performed precision attacks.”
The Indian Air Force “all types of aircraft flew with all types of regulations on the 10th,” he said.
India has said earlier that his rockets and drones have hit at least eight Pakistani air bases throughout the country that day, including one near the capital Islamabad.
The Pakistani army says that India did not once again flown his fighter jets in the conflict after loss on May 7.
India's director -General Air Operations, Air Marshal Ak Bharti, had told a press conference earlier in the month that “losing is part of fighting” and that India had reduced some Pakistani jets.
Islamabad has denied that losing aircraft has suffered, but has acknowledged that his air bases have suffered some hits, although losses were minimal.
No nuclear worries
Some attacks were on bases near the nuclear facilities of Pakistan, but they were not the target themselves, media reports said.
“Most strikes were supplied with PinPoint -nouble, some even up to a meter, until what our selected average point of impact was,” said Chauhan.
Chauhan, and Pakistan's chairman of the joint staff chefs, General Sahir Shamshad Mirza, both said that there was never any danger during the conflict that nuclear weapons were considered.
“I think there is a lot of room before that nuclear threshold is crossed, a lot of signaling for that, I think something like that did not happen,” said Chauhan. “There is a lot of room for conventional operations that have been made, and this will be the new standard.
“It is my personal view that the most rational people are in uniform when a conflict takes place,” he added. “During this operation I found both parties showing a lot of rationality in their thoughts and actions. So why should we assume that there will be irrationality of someone else in the nuclear domain?”
Chauhan also said that although Pakistan is closely linked to China, which is adjacent to India in the north and east, there was no sign of real help from Beijing during the conflict.
“Although this unfolded from (April) 22, we found no unusual activity in the operational or tactical depth of our northern borders, and things were generally fine.”
Asked whether China may have given satellite images or other real -time intelligence to Pakistan during the conflict, Chauhan said that such images were commercially available and could have been obtained from both China and other sources.
He added that although the hostilities had stopped, the Indian government had made it clear that it would “respond precisely and decisively if there were further terrorist attacks from Pakistan.”
“So that has its own dynamics with regard to the armed forces. It will require us to be prepared 24/7.”
(Reporting by Xinghui Kok and Raju Gopalakrishnanedding by Shri Navaratnam)
