India hit Pakistan's F-16s at Jacobabad during Operation Sindoor: Defence ministry

The killing of 26 tourists by an off-shoot of Lashkar-e-Taiba in Jammu and Kashmir's Pahalgam on April 22, 2025 triggered a chain of events that led to the armed forces striking terror targets in Pakistan, which ended in Islamabad asking for a ceasefire within 88 hours. The Indian Air Force struck two terror targets: Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed headquarters in Muridke and Bahawalpur respectively. These attacks were carried out using precision-guided weapons based on intelligence targeting, destroying infrastructure used for recruitment, training and planning, without causing civilian or military collateral damage. The remaining nine terror targets were struck by the army using artillery and loitering munitions.

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After the initial strikes on the terror targets, Pakistani military escalated the conflict with coordinated drone and missile attacks on military installations across Jammu and Kashmir in the north to Gujarat in the south. These were countered through the IAF's Integrated Air Command and Control System (IACCS), this coordinated various air defence assets to intercept drones, missiles, UAVs and loitering munitions.

Between May 8 and 10, Pakistan widened its targets beyond military assets to civilian infrastructure, places of worship, schools and medical centres. India responded with IAF strikes neutralising Pakistani air defence radars, command centres and military infrastructure at Chaklala, Rahim Yar Khan, Sukkur, Murid, Sargodha, Jacobabad and Bholari.

The IAF also struck Pakistani air bases including Nur Khan and Rahimyar Khan, while defending Indian airspace against retaliatory drone attacks using a layered air defence grid—the indigenous Akash system alongside Pechora and OSA-AK platforms, coordinated in real time through the Integrated Air Command and Control system.

F-16s hit at PAF Shahbaz

Six radars and two Surface to Air Guided Weapon locations were successfully targeted using a mix of air-launched weapons and loitering munitions. On May 10, the IAF struck four hangars housing fighter aircraft, AEW&C platforms and UCAVs, destroying or damaging multiple F-16s at Jacobabad, one Airborne Early Warning & Control (AEW&C) aircraft, and several Akinci and TB-2 class drones, with reported PAF casualties, according to a defence ministry report. Runways at Sargodha and Rahim Yar Khan were also damaged. Command centres at Chaklala, headquarters of Pakistan's Air Defence Command, and Murid were also destroyed.

Throughout the conflict, the IAF's IACCS, which fuses all military and civil surveillance sensors into a single recognised air picture, coordinated operations through networked tactical nodes across multiple locations. Even as Pakistan kept its civil airspace open and reportedly used civilian flights as shields during hostilities, India ensured no risk to international air traffic, with trained IACCS operators accurately identifying and classifying aerial targets throughout.

In one engagement, an IAF S-400 unit destroyed a Pakistani special mission aircraft from a distance of 314 kilometres, a strike that redefined assumptions around stand-off air defence range and demonstrated that no target, air or ground, was beyond the IAF's reach. 219 gallantry awards were conferred on Air Force personnel in recognition of their role during the operation.