New York Times accepts India's 'clear edge' over Pak in hitting military facilities, cites satellite images

The New York Times, in its report, has accepted that India had a "clear edge" in targeting Pakistan's military facilities and airfields during the recent four-day confrontation, citing satellite images. The report says that high-resolution satellite imagery, from before and after the strikes, shows "clear damage" to Pakistan's facilities by Indian attacks, according to the report.

"The four-day military clash between India and Pakistan was the most expansive fighting in half a century between the two nuclear-armed countries. As both sides used drones and missiles to test each other’s air defences and hit military facilities, they claimed to inflict severe damage,” the report said.

In the new age of high-tech warfare, the report said that strikes by both sides, verified by the imagery, appeared to be precisely targeted.

"Where India appears to have had a clear edge is in its targeting of Pakistan’s military facilities and airfields, as the latter stretch of fighting shifted from symbolic strikes and shows of force to attacks on each other’s defence capabilities,” the report said.

At Bholari air base, located less than 100 miles from the Pakistani port city of Karachi, India's defence officials said they had struck an aircraft hangar with a precision attack. “The visuals showed clear damage to what looks like a hangar,” the NYT report said.

Further, the Nur Khan airbase, within a roughly 15-mile range of both the Pakistani Army's headquarters and the office of the country's prime minister and a short distance from the unit that oversees and protects Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, was “perhaps the most sensitive military target that India struck.”

The Indian military said it had particularly targeted the runways and other facilities at some of Pakistan’s key air bases, and “satellite images showed the damage”, the report said, noting that on May 10, Pakistan issued a notice for the Rahim Yar Khan air base saying that the runway was not operational.

At Sargodha air base, in Punjab Province in Pakistan, the Indian military said it had used precision weapons to strike two sections of the runway.

"Satellite images of the sites Pakistan claimed to have hit are limited and so far do not clearly show damage caused by Pakistani strikes even at bases where there was corroborating evidence of some military action.”

On the Pakistani officials’ claim that their forces had “destroyed” India’s Udhampur air base, the NYT report said, “An image from May 12 does not appear to show damage.”

India carried out precision strikes under 'Operation Sindoor' on terror infrastructure early on May 7 in response to the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack that killed 26 people.

Following the Indian action, Pakistan attempted to attack Indian military bases on May 8, 9 and 10.

The Indian armed forces launched a fierce counter-attack on several Pakistani military installations, including Rafiqui, Murid, Chaklala, Rahim Yar Khan, Sukkur and Chunian.

Radar sites at Pasrur and Sialkot aviation base were also targeted using precision munitions, causing massive damage. India and Pakistan reached an understanding on May 10 to end the conflict after four days of intense cross-border drone and missile strikes.

(With inputs from AP)