Why was Pakistan unable to stop the missiles launched by India?
You may be familiar with Israel’s famous air defense system, ‘Iron Dome’ or ‘David’s Sling’, which is called the modern missile shield. Whether it’s a missile attack from Iran, rockets fired by Hamas, or drones fired by the Houthi rebels, these automated defense systems destroy them in midair as soon as they enter Israeli airspace.
In a war situation, the air defense system of any country is of great importance. The defense system includes anti-missile systems as well as radars and other devices that trace and track enemy aircraft.
Latest details on Pakistan-India tensions on BBC Urdu Live page
On the intervening night of Tuesday and Wednesday, India claimed to have carried out attacks on “terrorist hideouts” at multiple locations in Pakistan and its administered Kashmir under “Operation Sindoor,” saying the operation was against those responsible for the killing of 26 tourists in Pahalgam.
According to the Pakistani military, mosques and civilians were targeted in Pakistan and its administered Kashmir during the operation, which lasted from 1:05 a.m. to 1:30 a.m.
Although India did not specify what type of weapons were used in these attacks, Pakistani military spokesman Lieutenant General Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry said that India carried out a total of 24 attacks using various weapons at six locations.
The Pakistani military spokesman also claimed that Pakistan had shot down five Indian Air Force fighter jets and a drone in retaliation for India’s missile attacks.
Brahmos missile,Image sourceGetty Images
,Photo captionIndia did not say what type of missiles were fired.
It should be noted that this is not the first time that a missile from India has landed on Pakistani soil. In March 2022, a Brahmos missile from India also landed near the city of Mian Channu in Pakistan’s Punjab province. However, there were no casualties in this missile attack.
Although India had said in a statement issued regarding the incident that the missile was accidentally fired towards Pakistan, Director General of the Pakistani military’s Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Babar Iftikhar, while briefing the media with details, said that the ‘Indian projectile’ that entered Pakistani territory was a surface-to-surface supersonic missile.
Pakistan claimed that initial testing showed that the missile was a supersonic cruise missile capable of traveling at three times the speed of sound, and that it remained within Pakistani territory for three minutes and 44 seconds before falling and crashing 124 kilometers inside the Pakistani border.
Pakistani military sources also claimed that Pakistan’s air defense system had started monitoring the missile from the moment it was launched from the Indian city of Sirsa. It was continuously monitored throughout its flight.
After the Balakot strike and the downing of an Indian plane in 2019, both countries have bought new defense equipment. For example, the Indian Air Force now has 36 French-made Rafale fighter jets. The Pakistani military claims that it shot down two Rafale jets in retaliation for the recent attack, but India has not confirmed this. Meanwhile, according to the London-based International Institute of Strategic Studies, Pakistan has acquired at least 20 modern J-10 fighter jets from China during the same period, which are equipped with PL-15 missiles.
As for air defense, after 2019, India acquired the Russian S-400 anti-aircraft missile system, while Pakistan received the HQ-9 air defense system from China.
According to Radio Pakistan, the Pakistan Air Force said in a recent statement that its air defense capabilities include ‘advanced aerial platforms, high-to-medium altitude air defense systems, unmanned combat aerial vehicles, space, cyber, electronic warfare and artificial intelligence-powered systems.’
After India’s attack on Pakistan, some important questions have arisen: Is Pakistan’s air defense system capable of intercepting missiles coming from India to a large extent? And why was Pakistan unable to destroy the missiles launched from Indian airspace in the air before they reached their target?
Is Pakistan’s defense system capable of intercepting air-to-ground missiles?
Former Vice Air Marshal of the Pakistan Air Force, Ikramullah Bhatti, while speaking to the BBC, said that Pakistan’s air defense system has the capability to intercept short-range, medium-range and long-range surface-to-surface cruise and ballistic missiles.
He said that Pakistan has included various missile systems in its defense system, including the Chinese-made HQ-16FE defense system, which provides Pakistan with the capability of a modern defense missile system and is effective against surface-to-surface missiles, cruise missiles and warships. However, when it comes to intercepting air-to-surface missiles, such a defense system does not exist.
Former Air Commodore Adil Sultan, while talking to the BBC, said that no such defense system has been created in the world that provides foolproof security, especially in a situation where countries like Pakistan and India, whose borders meet and in some places this distance is only a few meters, it is certainly impossible to prevent air-to-ground missile attacks 100 percent.
He said that every defense system has a limit to the ability to intercept what types of missiles it will be able to intercept if multiple missiles of different types are launched into the air from different directions at the same time.
He said that after the Balakot attack, Pakistan has added several modern missiles and radar systems and improved its defense capabilities.
He said that although these modern defense systems are very effective, it is not possible to install an air defense system on the more than 2,500-kilometer-long eastern border that would make it 100 percent possible that no missile could enter there.
According to Adil Sultan, doing so would require billions of dollars and would not be very effective due to the close proximity of the borders. He also claimed that India does not have such a capability.
Air attack
Ikramullah Bhatti said that if we talk about the incident of the night of May 6, we will have to understand some things.
He said that these missiles were probably launched from air to ground by India, and if we talk about air-to-ground missiles, they have become very modern these days.
“Their speeds have become very fast, ranging from Mach 3 (3,675 km/h) to Mach 9 (11,025 km/h), and no country, including the United States, Russia, or China, has the ability to stop or intercept such a high-speed missile.”
He said that another difficulty in stopping missiles fired from the air is that their flight duration is very short and you have very limited time to react, while on the contrary, ground-to-ground missiles can be stopped because their flight duration is long.
The former Air Vice Marshal also said that India does not have the defense capability to stop a missile launched from air to ground by Pakistan.
He said that if we talk about last night’s incident, it was a similar case that Pakistan had very limited time to react and these missiles landed in Pakistan within a few moments.
Former Pakistan Air Force Air Commodore Adil Sultan said that no defense system in the world can 100 percent prevent attacks from geographically connected rival countries.
He said that however, it can reduce the damage. He said that the nature of the attack is also important for defense in such a system. If air-to-ground missiles are fired from different directions at the same time, it is somewhat difficult to identify them on radar and respond quickly.
Whereas if we talk about surface-to-surface missiles or cruise missiles, their deployment is known and you can cover their flight path or corridor.
He said that as Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar said, about 70 aircraft participated in this attack by India, so if eight or nine missiles hit the ground in such a major operation, it is normal in a war situation.
Although the dropping of these few bombs has resulted in the loss of human lives, since India carried out this operation on a large scale, there will certainly be some fake attacks, so the dropping of these few missiles is not unusual in terms of warfare.
