The Indian Air Force’s operation against Jaish-e-Mohammad that took place in Balakot, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Pakistan during the intervening night of Monday and Tuesday had hit four buildings in Jaish’s area of Madrasa Taleem-ul-Quram, according to a report.
According to a report published in the Indian Express, sources were cited saying that any assessment of terrorists killed in the attack is ‘purely speculative’ as there are limitations of technical intelligence and lack of ground intelligence at this point.
The Madarsa campus was hit by five S-2000 precision-guided munition (PGM) fired from IAF’ Mirage-2000 fighter jets. The daily reports that intelligence agencies have evidence in the form of imagery from Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR).
Questioning Pakistan’s sealing of Madarsa post attack, the official said, “Why did the Pakistan Army seal the madrasa after the strike? Why did it not allow journalists to visit the madrasa? We have evidence in the form of SAR imagery to show that a building used as a guest house, where brother of Maulana Masood Azhar used to stay; an L-shaped building where trainers used to stay; a double-storied building used to house students entering the seminary and another building where those undergoing final combat training used to stay, were hit by the bombs”.
The official further stated that the SAR images are not as clear as satellite pictures and it is for the political leadership to decide if it wants to release that imagery.
Talking about the IAF’s Israeli bombs used, he said that they cause damage only after entering a building. According to the report, official said that these buildings had roofs made of corrugated galvanized iron (CGI) sheets and that the SAR imagery shows on the first day that these roofs had gone missing. But, the CGI roofs underwent repair after two days, making the assessment of the full damage by technical intelligence difficult.
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