Pakistan Rejigs Posture After Attack

New Delhi: As visuals of the terror attack in Pahalgam on Tuesday played out in full public glare, Pakistan started moving its assets around the chessboard and military activity heightened along the India and Pakistan border areas. The Pakistan Air Force and the Army simultaneously carried out subtle reorientation of their air and ground defence postures.

Sources indicated the PAF deployed their electronic intelligence, airborne early warning and control system (AEW&C) aircraft over the northern airspace while the Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) backed surrogate military accounts on social media released visuals of Pakistani Army formations under the Lahore-based 4 Corps conducting field-level exercises at Tilla Field Ranges near Jhelum, close to the India-Pakistan border.

The Indian Air Force air defence structures and commercial radars picked up the heightened air activity in the neighbourhood. It is notable that Prime Minister Narendra Modi, while returning from Jeddah, avoided the Pakistan airspace, which was used for his journey to Saudi Arabia earlier in the day. Pakistan reoriented its air assets from the southern side towards the north, in its bid to pre-empt a backlash from India.

Meanwhile, it was reported the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) chief Lt. Gen. Asim Malik was engaged in back-to-back meetings on Tuesday afternoon attended by all the Maj. Gen. ranks D-Gs of the ISI in Islamabad.

Interestingly, it is learnt that Pakistan Army chief was in the general headquarters for a long time on Tuesday.

Initial findings suggest the Pahalgam attack was carefully planned over a period of time with clinical surgical precision involving detailed survey and reconnaissance of the target area to inflict mass casualties. The attack in Pahalgam took place close to the time when the Prime Minister landed in Jeddah on Tuesday afternoon. It could be sheer coincidence that both Indian and Pakistani PMs were not in the country when the Pahalgam attack took place. Pakistan PM Shahbaz Sharif was in Turkey on Tuesday.

Pakistan is anticipating a well-calibrated response like Balakot in 2019 or a surgical strike like in 2016. Defence sources indicated there are around 40 launch pads in Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir with over 100 terrorists in these camps waiting to cross over to India.

For Pakistan Army Chief Syed Asim Munir, who has been facing strong resistance and intense backlash from the Imran Khan-led PTI, increasing tensions with India is the way to gain credibility and restore the destroyed "izzat" of the Pakistan Army in the eyes of the people. His recent rabid anti-Indian statement on Kashmir is seen in this context by the Indian defence establishment.

There has been a strong resentment against the Pakistan Army in civil society since the ouster of Mr Khan as Prime Minister of Pakistan in April 2022. The anti-Army sentiment was so severe that after the arrest of Mr Khan in May 2023, people went on a rampage across Pakistan, including the unprecedented instance of burning down the residence of the Lahore Corps Commander, also known as Jinnah House, allegedly by the pro-PTI crowd.

Despite pressure, the Pakistan Army has not been able to break the hugely popular Mr Khan, seen as the second coming of Muhammad Ali Jinnah by common Pakistanis, and reach a compromise with him. Mr Khan continues to enjoy strong support in the public from the jail. He also enjoys support from some elements of the Pakistan Army due to his hard-line approach.

This has led Gen. Munir, who is also a "Hafiz e Quran" (one who has memorised the entirety of the Quran) to now go back to the old trick of fuelling anti-India sentiment to gain support among the Pakistani public, said sources in the defence establishment.

Gen. Munir described Kashmir as the "jugular vein" of his country and invoked the two-nation theory propounded by Pakistan’s founder, M.A. Jinnah. He called upon the Pakistanis to tell stories to children so that they don't forget they are "different from Hindus".