The article is written by Shawn Snow, who raised few questions about India”s capability to conduct any surgical strike on Pakistan soil.
A Japanese magazine has questioned the Indian claim of conducting surgical strikes on Pakistani territory, maintaining India does not have capacity to do so.
The Diplomat magazine has carried an article under the title: “Is India Capable of a Surgical Strike in Pakistan Controlled Kashmir?”
The article is wrriten by Shawn Snow, who raised few questions about India’s capability to conduct any surgical strike on Pakistan soil.
“A surgical strike operation by Indian forces begs the question of whether Indian forces have the capability to launch such a sophisticated and coordinated attack,” Snow wrote in the magazine.
Giving information about the surgical strikes, it says, that the strikes can be conducted through airborne or artillery based precision guided strikes or ground force based assaults; both of which require sophisticated intelligence collection, platforms to conduct collections, and surveillance of target sites and objectives.
It also raised doubts on India’s airborne, artillery based precision guided strikes, or ground force based assaults.
“India is still on the cusp of building a sophisticated and modernized asymmetrical capability to conduct counterterror operations, while much of its forces are still organized and trained on Cold War models,” the report said.
Commenting over the air defense system of Pakistan, the report said: “Furthermore, a cross border air raid by either heliborne assets or drones would still prove exceedingly difficult as Pakistan boasts an incredibly impressive air defense system.”
“Pakistan controlled Kashmir is a high threat area for shoulder fired surface to air missiles, some of which have found their way into the hands of militant groups. Any air operation over the territory would be under threat from these weapon systems,” the report observed.
Raising further doubts about the operation, it said India has released little detail on the operation; however if India in fact carried out a cross border surgical strike on terrorist facilities and not Pakistani military posts, it would be a paradigm shift in India’s war against terrorist and militant organizations.
“It would also boast the perception that India’s asymmetrical warfare capability is further along than many may perceive,” it said.
On 29 September (Thursday) India claimed it had conducted some “surgical strike” in Pakistan-administered Kashmir across the de-facto border of divided Kashmir called as Line of Control (LoC).
The report said that in past decade India has spearheaded efforts to modernize her military to include domestic production of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).
“Rostum I and Rostum II could provide India with an air platform capable of surgical strikes, long loiter times for target surveillance, and intelligence collection,” the report noted.
However, it added, these platforms are still in development and Rostum II just began test trials this summer.
“India’s drone development program is still in its infancy.”
The announcement about the “surgical strike” was made by Army’s Director General of Military Operations (DGMO), Lt. Gen. Ranbir Singh at a prresser in New Delhi.