Sharif Admits India Pre-empted Pakistan’s Planned Offensive with BrahMos Missiles
Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, May 29: Even as Pakistan has kept claiming of having won the latest round of skirmishes against India in the aftermath of the Pahalgam terror attack, its Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has publicly admitted that Indian forces had destroyed a couple of its airbases and had pre-empted Islamabad’s planned offensive on the intervening night of May 9-10 when India launched BrahMos missiles to strike its key military bases, including Rawalpindi airport.
Speaking at the Pakistan-Turkey-Azerbaijan trilateral summit in Azerbaijan’s Lachin, Sharif said the Pakistani military led by Field Marshal Asim Munir, had planned to attack India on May 10 at 4:30 AM after the morning prayers. However, even before dawn, India pre-emptively rained down multiple Pakistani military installations and strategic locations with BrahMos missiles.
“On the night of May 9-10, we decided to respond in a measured fashion to Indian aggression. Our armed forces were prepared to act at 4.30 in the morning after Fajr prayers to teach a lesson. But before that hour even arrived, India once again launched a missile attack using BrahMos, targeting various provinces of Pakistan, including the airport in Rawalpindi,” Sharif said while addressing the event.
“India destroyed Noor Khan (Rawalpindi) and Murid (Chakwal) bases before our planned attack time arrived,’ he added. India unleashed its formidable BrahMos supersonic cruise missile as part of “Operation Sindoor” in retaliatory precision strikes on Pakistani military bases. Pakistan had escalated the situation on the border after India’s Operation Sindoor and sent drones to attack Indian cities, however, those were intercepted and taken down by the air defence system — S-400 and Akash. India had responded to the provocation and dispatched its drones to multiple cities in Pakistan.
Later, a ceasefire was announced between New Delhi and Islamabad on May 10 after the latter’s DGMO reached out to his counterpart in Delhi to cease military actions. India launched “precision strikes” under Operation Sindoor on nine terror targets in Pakistan and PoK following the Pahalgam terror attack that killed 26 civilians. The strikes killed over 100 terrorists including 10 family members of Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) chief Masood Azhar and four close aides.
Targets included Jaish’s Markaz Subhan Allah in Bahawalpur, Sarjal camp in Tehra Kalan, Markaz Abbas in Kotli, and the Syedna Bilal camp in Muzaffarabad. Lashkar’s strongholds — Markaz Taiba in Murdike, Markaz Ahle Hadith in Barnala, and Shwawai Nalla camp in Muzaffarabad — were also hit. Hizbul Mujahideen’s facilities at Makaz Raheel Shahid in Kotli and Mehmoona Joya in Sialkot were among those targeted.
Meanwhile, a video of UN-proscribed terrorist Talha Saeed – son of 26/11 Mumbai attacks mastermind Hafiz Saeed – has emerged in which he is purportedly inciting violence against India, during a public rally at Lahore in the presence of the Pakistani politicians on stage.
The video clip from the rally, which was held on Wednesday shows Talha Saeed welcoming the speaker of the Punjab assembly, Malik Ahmad Khan, on stage along with other politicians. Posters of Field Marshal Asim Munir can also be spotted, alongside those of Hafiz Saeed.
According to top intelligence sources, this shows Pakistan’s institutional support of terrorism. Under the guise of appreciating ‘Operation Bunyan al-Marsus’ when Pakistan tested its nuclear weapons, all the extremists are back together on the same stage, the sources said.
The intelligence sources said the presence of Talha shows that the extremists are celebrating the Pakistan Army under state sponsorship. He also named alleged Pahalgam attack mastermind Saifullah Khalid during the rally, they said. They said India did not err by targeting terror infrastructure under Operation Sindoor in Pakistan and Pakistan-Occupied-Kashmir (PoK). Talha’s speech threatened to “choke India” over the abeyance of the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT), which is a lifeline for Pakistan’s agriculture.
“Today there is a message for India from Pakistan. We have won ‘Operation Bunyan al-Marsus’ and God should accept our presence here. I’m thankful to Malik Ahmad Khan, speaker of Punjab Assembly, Malik Rashid Khan and Saifullah Khalid for their presence here on stage. I also salute the people of Pakistan on behalf of my father Hafiz Saeed. I am here to tell you God loves those who do jihad,” he said during the rally.
In his speech, the sources said, Talha also dismissed the terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam as “drama.” He further claimed that Hafiz Saeed was under the peaceful protection of the state – despite a purported prison sentence – and this exposes Pakistan’s fraudulent counter-terrorism policy, they added.
