ISLAMABAD -Indian Air Force had planned airstrikes against Pakistan Military Brigade across LoC, revealed former IAF Chief.
In a big revelation post retirement, former (IAF) chief BS Dhanoa link has said that India would have attacked Pakistan Army link installations if Pakistan Air Force link had successfully hit Indian targets on February 27 (a day after India's strike on terror camp in Balakot link).
"Since the PAF had targeted military installations on the 27th of February (a day after India struck the Jaish-e-Mohammed camp near Balakot), the Pakistan Army had now become a legitimate target and had their strikes been successful, we would have put a considerable weight of attack on their forward brigades,'' Dhanoa said during a discussion on 'Understanding The Message of Balakot' in Chandigarh, the Economic Times has reported.
That means, India was ready to escalate the attacks against Pakistan by targeting major Pakistani forward brigades, not just posts along the LoC.
In its retaliatory attack against India's strike in Balakot, Pakistan Air Force was not able to hit a single military installations in Jammu and Kashmir's Rajouri-Poonch sector despite launching precision guided bombs on February 27.
However, former Air Chief Marshal regretted that India "could not impose significant costs on the PAF on the 27th of February" due to technological disadvantage and added the people responsible for delay in upgradation of Indian defence capabilities are equally responsible for this missed opportunity.
He said that the biggest lesson from the limited period engagement of Balakot was that "technology matters".