‘Proof of Balakot success conclusive,’ says former IAF chief BS Dhanoa

The former IAF chief, under whose leadership the force carried out the attack and who monitored the pre-dawn raid from his house, said military victory is measured by whether you have achieved the stated political objective, which was successfully done in the Balakot operation.

Updated on: Feb 11, 2020, 10:21:46 IST

Hindustan Times, New Delhi | By Shishir Gupta

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Former Indian Air Force (IAF) chief BS Dhanoa has said there was conclusive proof that the 2019 Balakot air strike on a Jaish-e-Mohammed camp was a military success, and warned that the Indian government could hit cross-border terrorists harder if they launched a strike similar to the one in Pulwama on February 14, 2019.

Air Chief Marshal (retd) Dhanoa (Sonu Mehta/HT PHOTO)

Speaking to Hindustan Times almost a year after IAF’s February 26 strike in Pakistani territory, Air Chief Marshal (retd) Dhanoa said: “I think the government will hit them again. This time harder, and take out the buildings also so that there is no doubt in anyone mind.”

He was responding to a question on what the Indian response could be to a possible Pulwama-like attack.

The former IAF chief, under whose leadership the force carried out the attack and who monitored the pre-dawn raid from his house, said military victory is measured by whether you have achieved the stated political objective, which was successfully done in the Balakot operation.

“We hit the target with five stand-off weapons. The ‘target hit’ information was delayed as weapons for video recording the kill failed, and the satellite pass at 8.30am could not pick up much due to clouds. The first confirmation came through synthetic aperture camera, showing penetration in the roof of Balakot buildings. We hit three buildings and left one deliberately. The weapon is designed in such a way that building survives but the occupants don’t,” he said.

On the future of IAF’s response capabilities, he said: “With the induction of the S-400 missile system and the Rafales, we will be in position to effect a behavioural change within the Pakistan establishment. If we had these two platforms or only Rafale with us on February 27, and we had shot down four or five of their aircrafts, the behavioural change would have taken place immediately.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Shishir Gupta
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.Read More

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