IAF's Mirage 2000 jets cross LoC, destroy PoK terror camp with 1,000 kg bombs

The IAF jets entered a town in Mansehra district in Pakistan's Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa before Pakistani Air Force tried to intercept them.

NEW DELHI: Indian Air Force (IAF) Mirage 2000 fighters crossed the Line of Control (LoC) early Tuesday morning and destroyed a major terrorist camp based in Pakistan. The attack was launched by 12 Mirage fighters which dropped 1000 kilogramme bombs on terror camps across the LoC at 3:30 am on February 26 and completely destroyed it, IAF sources said.

The IAF jets entered deep into Pakistan, according to the Pakistani military. The fighters reached Balakot, a town in Mansehra district in Pakistan's Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa before Pakistani Air Force tried to intercept them.

Pakistani armed forces spokesperson Major General Asif Ghafoor took to Twitter to claim that IAF jets were intercepted by PAF near Balakot. The IAF fighters "released payload in haste while escaping which fell near Balakot". He added that there were no casualties or damage to the Pakistani side.

The air strike comes 12 days after the dastardly suicide attack on a Central Reserve Police Force convoy in Jammu and Kashmir's Pulwama in which 40 security personnel were martyred.

The Pakistani spokesperson also tweeted a few photographs which showed burnt trees and craters in a jungle, claiming the payload dropped by IAF jets fell in the open.

According to sources, Prime Minister Narendra Modi took the decision to target the terror camps in PoK within 24 hours of the Pulwama attack. 

This is the first instance of the IAF crossing the LoC.

The Indian Army had conducted the 2016 surgical strikes on terror launch pads in PoK along the LoC, 12 days after the Uri attack which claimed the lives of 19 Indian soldiers.