Gongkar County, Tibet
The men laid blankets on the cold rocks and lowered the stretcher onto them so that Togden could drink water. Choedrak pulled a bottle out from inside his coat, where he had been keeping it from turning to ice. He tilted it to Togden’s lips, chapped and coated with frozen blood, and held his head, while the monk let the water drain into his mouth.
Swiftly deteriorating weather struck Togden down once they climbed into the high mountain passes. For the whole of the second day he had a fever and was semi-conscious. The men carried him and led their ponies rather than ride in order to keep warm. They wrapped protective cloths around their faces to shield them from lashing rain and snow-blindness. Reports kept reaching them of movements of Chinese troops sent in to cut them off, but Choedrak had prepared the route well. Armed units from the Special Frontier Force welcomed them at many villages. They were hiding out along the mountain roads, waiting in ambush for the Chinese.
Once they reached the higher ground, it was easier to hide from helicopters. But the weather was appalling. The pursuit continued, and, before dark, they shot down two helicopters with their heavy machine guns. The Chinese also used new microlights, fitted with GPS and aerial surveillance equipment. They buzzed the Tibetans, flying in driving rain, sending back details of their positions. Then ground-attack aircraft roared in with cannon and bombs.
But the mountains were too dangerous for the pilots to be accurate. They spat fire into the snow and caused avalanches, but never once did they come close to hurting Togden and his party.
Indian Air Force Base, Lohegaon, Maharastra
On the radio command ‘Shikar’ the aircraft roared along the runway. The early morning sun flashed through the cockpit onto the instrument panels for the two crew and the distinctive tail-fins of the aircraft from No. 24 Squadron ‘Hunting Hawks’ shook on take-off as one by one the pilots took their aircraft up. Their serial numbers were SB 076, SB 082, SB 083, SB 084, SB 091 and SB 092.
The mission could have been carried out with different aircraft: the MiG-27s from the ‘Scorpios’ Squadron; the multi-role MiG-29s from the secretive No. 223 Squadron; the French-built Mirage 2000H from No. 1 ‘Tigers’ Squadron; or even the British Jaguars, which had been adapted to carry nuclear weapons. But the six planes lined up at the Indian Air Force base east of Bombay, painted in the national tricolour livery of saffron, white and green, were the cream of the country’s air force. Russian-designed but Indian-built, the SU-30MKI was one of the most formidable combat aircraft in the world. Such was Russia’s enthusiasm for the SU-30 that many other aircraft projects were starved of cash in order to develop it. As a buyer, India’s historic military relationship with the Soviet Union and then with Russia gave it the first option. Once the order was secured, Russia refused supplies to potential enemies, such as China and Pakistan. This was why India had now chosen to make a show of using the sort of airpower that its neighbouring enemies would never now possess.
The SU-30 series was initially designed as a long-range interceptor, to provide cover for Russia’s naval forces and to patrol the enormous and remote border areas. The MKI export version acquired by India had been built with a multi-role added ground-attack capability, and the problems it had encountered in the late nineties had now been solved. The Russian avionics systems had been replaced by French and Israeli cockpit instrumentation suites, with a special feature of four-liquid colour displays for both the pilot in the front and the gunner and weapons-systems operator, on a slightly raised seat behind for better vision. The division of the workload between the two crew was balanced to ensure maximum range and highest air-superiority endurance. The specialized equipment in the rear cockpit also allowed the aircraft to act as a mini-AWACs and command post. The primary weapon sensor was a Zhuk N001 pulse Doppler multimode radar with a range of 105 kilometres, with which it could track two airborne targets up to 75 kilometres. A secondary weapons sensor was the Infrared Search and Tracking system (IRST), with a 370 kilometre range.
The aircraft had been specially equipped for this mission, and did not carry typical weapons packages. The air-to-air missile systems were limited because India did not expect enemy aircraft to be scrambled and intercepted during the few minutes the strikes would take. A decision had also been taken not to use free-fall bombs, in order to prevent allegations of indiscriminate attack.
The pilots retained their helmet-mounted sights for use with close-combat R-77 missiles in a look-and-shoot capability, together with air-to-surface missile and jamming pods for destroying and disabling air-defence systems. Their main attack weapons were the 30mm cannon, for strafing, air-to-surface missiles, including the Kh-31P anti-radar missiles and laser-guided fire-and-forget missiles, and laser-guided bombs.
When Group Captain Amrit Dhal reached 33,000 feet he sent the single high-frequency radio message ‘Checkmate’.
Flying at more than Mach 2, they were less than forty minutes from reaching their target. At high altitude, the SU-30MK had a range of 3,200 kilometres, and 7,250 kilometres with air-to-air refuelling. It would not be used this time; the aircraft were due to return to the big airbase in Ambala, just south of Chandigarh, where they would stay until the potential for conflict had diminished.
After taking off to the east, the warplanes turned north until they reached Srinagar, 1,700 kilometres away. The take-off from Lohegaon was picked up by Pakistani radar operators, but did not prompt any alert. It could have been nothing but a routine operation. At Srinagar, though, the aircraft turned due west and within minutes had burst through Pakistani airspace. The targets were between 3,000 and 4,000 feet above sea level. Five of the aircraft dropped to as low as 2,000 feet above ground as they flew across the Line-of-Control into Pakistani territory.
General Headquarters, Rawalpindi, Pakistan
The photographs of the dead were mostly of young men, but many of the bodies were charred beyond recognition. The villages named on the photograph captions were Kohala, Garhi, Mahandri and Jarad, just inside Pakistani-controlled Kashmir. Houses were in flames. Patches of scorched grass smouldered and lines of refugees were stumbling away along the tracks, which led to safer areas.
The list of the victims was too long for Hamid Khan to do anything but glance down it. He noticed a twelve-year-old girl from Garhi and an eighty-two-year-old man from Jarad. The Indian airstrikes killed 140 Pakistanis, most of them civilians. Pakistan sovereignty had been violated. People were fleeing right along the LoC, an estimated sixty thousand, no longer believing that their army would protect them. The frontier, which had kept the two sides apart for sixty years, was no longer recognized as a valid border.
‘What are the Indians saying?’ Khan asked Masood, who had brought the photographs into his military bunker office.
‘Unni Krishnan,the Chief of Army Staff, said after damage assessment that there may be more strikes. The attack aircraft have returned not to Lohegaon, but to Ambala, which is only a few minutes’ flying time from the front. Our radar has detected ten more SU-30MKs also flying up to Ambala, and Mirage 2000 fighters are expected for any future sorties.’
‘Artillery exchanges along the LoC?’