Pakistan’s Operation Bunyan al-Marsoos retaliation to Indian Operation Sindoor on May 10 lasted just eight hours with Islamabad desperately calling the US to intervene on its behalf for a ceasefire, after four major air strikes by IAF pulverized the air-bases, air assets and air defenses of the enemy on the intervening night of May 10, according to people familiar with the matter.
Indian Rafale launched missiles and 11 strikes by S-400 knocked out Pakistan.
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IAF fighters launched precision missiles that struck Pakistan four times on May 10, with Rafale-launched SCALP missiles and SU-30 MKI-launched Brahmos missiles taking out the northern air command-control network at Nur Khan airbase in Chaklala in the first strike itself, the people added. The last strike was carried out at Jacobabad and Bholari air bases but by that time Pakistan had folded and was seeking US intervention for cease fire.
The so-called Bunyan al-Marsoos operation that Pakistan launched at 1.00 am on May 10 with the promise of destroying Indian air bases in the next 48 hours as per communication intercepts, lasted only till 930 am as India went in hard against Pakistan using an assortment of air to surface missiles, the people said.
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India’s S-400 air defence system in Adampur went into action no less than 11 times during Operation Sindoor and destroyed a Pakistani SAAB-2000 airborne early warning system as far as 315 kilometres away deep in Pakistan.
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India’s S-400 air defence system in Adampur went into action no less than 11 times during Operation Sindoor and destroyed a Pakistani SAAB-2000 airborne early warning system as far as 315 kilometres away deep in Pakistan.
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India’s S-400 air defence system
Indian Air Force also has proof of its missiles having downed one C-130 J medium lift aircraft, a JF-17 and two F-16 fighters on ground and in the air, they added.
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The IAF used both SCALP and Brahmos in tandem so that target was not missed. During the May 7 attack on nine terrorist camps, seven camps were hit by an assortment of loitering ammunition of Army, Air Force and the Navy with terror factories at Muridke and Bahawalpur being hit by SCALP and Brahmos missiles with precision guided capabilities.
According to the people cited above, on May 10, the Indian strikes took out a Chinese-made LY-80 air defence system using a HARPY kamikaze drone at Lahore, while an Indian missile took out the prized HQ-9 (Chinese version of S-300) at Malir in Karachi.
The Indian Navy was prepared to target Karachi Naval Port on May 10 morning with its armada moving 260 miles off Makaran Coast but the Pakistan DGMO called up to say that there would be a retaliation in case India used Brahmos missiles to strike at the port. The threat for retribution from Pakistan left Indian armed forces as well as the political leadership unfazed but by May 10 afternoon, the PAK DGMO was requesting a no fire pact .
Shishir Gupta is Executive Editor at Hindustan Times and one of India's top journalists covering national security, strategic affairs, foreign policy and geopolitics. Over the past three decades, he has extensively reported on India's military, diplomatic and security landscape, covering every major conflict and national security challenge, from the 1999 Kargil War and the 2020 East Ladakh standoff to Operation Sindoor in 2025. He has also covered major terror attacks, including the IC-814 hijacking, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the 2025 Pahalgam terror strike, along with numerous Pakistan-backed terrorist incidents in the Kashmir Valley and across India. He has reported on national and state elections for more than three decades. A recognised authority on strategic affairs, Gupta has covered India's nuclear programme since the Pokhran-II (Shakti series) tests in May 1998 and has written extensively on global nuclear issues, Indian diplomacy and the country's expanding global outreach. He has also reported widely on international conflicts and terrorism, with a special focus on the Indian subcontinent. Gupta has interviewed Prime Minister Narendra Modi more than four times, including Modi's first interview with the print media after becoming Prime Minister in May 2014. His other interviews include three with the Dalai Lama, as well as conversations with Benjamin Netanyahu, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, S. Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal. He is the author of Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (Hachette, 2011) and Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and Indian Riposte (Hachette, 2014). He was awarded the Chevening-Wolfson Joint Scholarship at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UK, in 1998 and participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the US State Department in 2006. He received the Ben Gurion Prize from Israel in 2011 and the K. Subrahmanyam Prize for Strategic Studies in 2015 from the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA). Since 2024, he has hosted Point Blank, Hindustan Times' weekly YouTube show on global geopolitics.
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Home/India News/Four air-launched missile strikes by IAF on May 10 and Pakistan was on the mat
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