We did not miss targets, IAF squadron leaders say on Balakot airstrikes

Sharing the story with NDTV,  two Squadron Leaders who were among Mirage 2000 fighter pilots, spoke on their role in the attack.

This was the first Indian Air Force assault on a target inside the territory of Pakistan since the 1971 war.

On request of not revealing their names, the two pilots said they smoked cigarettes before the operation and "kept pacing up and down once we knew what our mission was."

"The entire operation took approximately two-and-a-half hours," revealed one of the two Squadron Leaders.

Both pilots were responsible for launching Spice 2000 satellite-guided bombs at the target.

On Feb 26, the Indian Air Force (IAF) had deployed 12 Mirage 2000 jets in order to strike the terrorist facility by firing two separate types of Israeli munitions - the Spice 2000, designed to penetrate deep inside the structures targeted and the Crystal Maze, set to send back a video feed of the targets as it struck them.

However, a low cloud base prevented the IAF from launching the Crystal Maze weapons on the day of the attacks.

"I have no doubt that the Spice 2000 hit its target," the second Mirage pilot told NDTV on being asked about the controversy regarding the effectiveness of the IAF strikes.

Satellite imaging company DigitalGlobe released images showcasing that all the structures at the Jaish camp remained intact even after the IAF strike.

"The resolution of the satellite imagery which was shown is nowhere close to what is needed to accurately show the ingress points of the weapon" said one of the pilots. "The Spice 2000 is not a weapon that misses. There may have been efforts at concealing the damage caused on the roofs of the buildings."

The IAF has time and again stated that the Spice 2000 weapon it used was designed to penetrate to a certain depth before exploding.

The type of the bomb used was meant to strike human targets without necessarily destroying buildings.

Asked whether those two hours during the mission were the longest in his career, one of the two pilots said, ''It went by in a flash because there was so much to do."

Paying back Pakistan days after the Pulwama terror attack which left over 40 Indian paramilitary personnel dead in February, the Indian Air Force (IAF) conducted a pre-dawn surgical strike across the Line of Control (LoC) in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) destroying what it called the biggest camp of terror outfit Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM).

The Pulwama attack was carried out by Pakistan-based militant organisation, Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) on Feb 14 in Kashmir, triggering a nationwide outrage in India with Prime Minister Narendra Modi swearing that the perpetrators would not go unpunished.