Fewer than 50 weapons forced Pakistan to call for ceasefire: Air Marshal Tiwari

The Indian Air Force (IAF) fired fewer than 50 weapons at Pakistani military targets and forced Islamabad by May 10 to call for a ceasefire following the four-day conflict during Operation Sindoor, Vice Chief of the Air Staff Air Marshal Narmdeshwar Tiwari said on Saturday (August 30, 2025).

Air Marshal Tiwari, recounting the mission, said the IAF was able to achieve “complete domination” over the Pakistan military with the strikes that were carried out following Pakistan’s attack on the intervening night of May 9 and 10.

“I must tell you that it was a key takeaway for us that in less than 50 weapons, we were able to achieve complete domination. It has not happened before,” he said at a defence summit.

The senior IAF officer, who played a key role in Operation Sindoor, said some of the Pakistan targets that were “taken out” in the course of the mission were not hit even during the 1971 war.

“We made every weapon count, and that is a tacit acknowledgement of the capability of our planners and people who executed the missions,” he said.

India launched Operation Sindoor on May 7, targeting terrorist infrastructure in territories controlled by Pakistan in response to the Pahalgam terror attack.

The Air Marshal said the directives to the IAF were that the punitive action should be “visible” and that nine terror targets were chosen out of a large number of options. He said that “conflict elimination” was a part of the overall strategy. “It is very easy to start a war, but not easy enough to end it. And that was an important consideration to keep in mind,” he said.

Air Marshal Tiwari said India was not willing to escalate the situation following its strikes on Pakistani terror infrastructure on the early morning of May 7.

“We expected a response and still kept it calibrated, and we engaged only military targets. But when the main attack came on the night of May 9-10, that was the time we decided that we needed to go and send the right message. We hit them pan-front,” he said.

“There were targets which were taken out, which were not even taken out during the 1971 war. That is the kind of extent and damage to capability that we had caused to them,” he said, adding that IAF restricted its strikes to military targets.

He acknowledged that the use of long-range vectors to hit enemy targets involves risks, but the IAF executed the mission with perfection.

“The precision targeting from this range is very, very essential as it is very risky because the longer the vector, you feel that there are more chances of collateral (damage).”

“But to the credit of our planners and credit of people who executed the missions, we were able to take out each target precisely. We were able to ensure there was no collateral damage. This is not an easy game,” he said.