Operation Safed Sagar
Operation Safed Sagar (Hindi: ऑपरेशन सफेद सागर, lit. "Operation White Sea") was the code name assigned to the Indian Air Force's role in acting jointly with the Ground troops during the Kargil war that was aimed at flushing out Regular and Irregular troops of the Pakistani Army from vacated Indian Positions in the Kargil sector along the Line of Control.[1] It was the first large scale use of Airpower in the Jammu and Kashmir region since the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971.
![](../I/m/MiG-23_Bn_Aircraft.jpg)
Ground operations
Initial infiltrations were noticed in Kargil in early May, 1999. Because of the extreme winter weather in Kashmir, it was common practice for the Indian and Pakistan Army to abandon forward posts and reoccupy them in the spring. That particular spring, the Pakistan Army started reoccupying the forward posts well before the scheduled time. In a preliminary step in their bid to capture Kashmir, they reoccupied not only their own posts, but also 132 posts that belonged to India.[2]
By the second week of May, an ambush on an Indian army patrol acting on a tip-off by a local shepherd in the Batalik sector led to the exposure of the infiltration. Initially with little knowledge of the nature or extent of the encroachment, the Indian troops in the area initially claimed that they would evict them within a few days. However, reports of infiltration elsewhere along the LoC soon made it clear that the entire plan of attack was on a much bigger scale. India responded with Operation Vijay, a mobilisation of 200,000 Indian troops. However, because of the nature of the terrain, division and corps operations could not be mounted; the scale of most fighting was at the regimental or battalion level. In effect, two divisions of the Indian Army,[3] numbering 20,000, along with several thousand from the Paramilitary forces of India and the air force were deployed in the conflict zone. the Indian Army moved into the region in full force. The intruders were found to be well entrenched and while artillery attacks had produced results in certain areas, more remote ones needed the help of the air force. The Indian Govt cleared only limited use of Air Power on May 25, more than three weeks after first reports, for fear of undesirable escalation, with the fiat that IAF fighter jets were not to cross the Line of Control under any circumstance. This diktat prevented the IAF from attacking Pakistani outposts from the optimal line of attack, but had far reaching consequences, in that it later led to immense international pressure- initiated by the US- on Pakistan to withdraw from the Kargil sector.[4]
Air operations
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Summary of Air Effort
Breakdown of Total Number of Sorties Flown by Aircraft Type:
Type | Number of Sorties | % Effort |
---|---|---|
Transport | 3427 | 44.9% |
Heptrs | 2474 | 32.4% |
Fighters | 1730 | 22.7% |
Total | 7831 |
Breakdown of Air Operations by Task (Fast Jets)
Role | Number of Sorties | % Effort |
---|---|---|
Air Strikes | 578 | 48% |
CAP & Escort | 462 | 39% |
Recce | 159 | 13% |
Total | 1199 |
Source: IAF and MoD Annual Report [28]
Aftermath
The lessons learned in this limited war influenced India to urgently upgrade its combat fleet. It acquired and later started co-developing Sukhoi Su-30MKI heavy fighters with Russia beginning in the early 2000s. The process of acquiring 126 Medium Multi-role Combat Aircraft was also initiated in 2001, India's largest military tender to date.
See also
References and sources
- http://indianairforce.nic.in/content/op-safed-sagar
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ti_xPBoC8hY
- Lessons from Kargil. Gen VP Malik. Bharat-Rakshak Monitor Archived 2009-04-08 at the Wayback Machine
- "All you need to know about Kargil War". The Economic Times.
- https://www.dailyo.in/politics/kargil-vijay-diwas-kargil-war-kashmir-1999-india-pakistan-war-indian-army-air-force/story/1/5182.html
- "Airpower at 18,000': The Indian Air Force in the Kargil War". Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
- http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/IAF/history/kargil/1056-pcamp.html
- "HOW THE IAF DOMINATED THE SKIES DURING KARGIL WAR". Indian Defence News.
- "PAF Role in Kargil War by PAF Officer". Pakistan Defence.
- https:// timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/science/How-Kargil-spurred-India-to-design-own-GPS/articleshow/33254691.cms?from=mdr
- India launches Kashmir air attack. BBC News. May 26 1999
- "The Mirage 2000 in Kargil". Bharat Rakshak.
- https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/how-iafs-air-warriors-helped-turned-the-tide-of-the-kargil-war-331972-2016-07-28
- The Kargil Operations. The Mirage-2000 at Kargil. Bharat-rakshak.com Archived 2011-08-07 at the Wayback Machine
- India loses two jets. BBC News. May 27 1999
- "Flyer pushes frontier again – Nachiketa returns to area where his plane was shot down". Telegraph India. Retrieved 2006-09-18.
- https://www.rbth.com/articles/2013/01/16/migs_over_kargil_how_the_fulcrum_buzzed_the_falcons_21659
- https://www.bharat-rakshak.com/IAF/history/kargil/1056-pcamp.html
- "1999 Kargil Conflict". GlobalSecurity.org.
- http://vayu-sena.tripod.com/kargil-summary1.html/
- https://noelsramblings.blogspot.com/2019/06/remembering-op-safed-sagar-at-kargil.html
- http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/IAF/Database/16378
- http://www.sps-aviation.com/interviews/?id=48&h=20-years-after-Kargil-War-Man-who-bombed-Tiger-Hill-tells-how-the-War-was-won-from-the-air
- http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/IAF/Database/21224
- http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/IAF/Database/17464
- https://www.news18.com/news/auto/why-air-force-picked-mirage-2000-fighter-jets-to-carry-out-surgical-strikes-2-0-2048731.html
- https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/defence/the-plane-that-pounded-jaish-targets-across-loc/articleshow/68165033.cms?from=mdr
- http://vayu-sena.tripod.com/kargil-summary1.html/