 Hello and welcome to NewsClick. Today we are going to discuss the surgical strike 2 as it has been called by some and the airstrike really on the Jayasheb Muhammad camp claimed by the government of India. What is this airstrike that has been talked about and what is the impact that it has had on the ground from the reports that we have? Firstly, the airstrike has a strike by a fairly large set of Mirage aircraft and quite deep into Pakistani territory beyond the Jammu and Kashmir and not within the restricted area of the LOC region per se. What you are saying is it is beyond what we call the Pakistan administered Kashmir and from that point of view, it is the first air incursion by India into Pakistan since the 1971 war. So, it has significance in that. Secondly, of course, if the strike has been as successful as is claimed and I think we will come to know in subsequent days how successful or not it has been, then if it has been a strike against established Jayesh training camps at such a location, Balakot which is as I said fairly deep inside the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa area of Pakistan, it is a significant development. Implications of this, I think remain to be seen depending on how geopolitics unfolds. Narrowly, if we look at the strike itself, the Pakistan representative, the military spokesperson has claimed it was really not a deep strike. The Indian Air Force was turned back and it dropped its bombs in an uninhabited area. On the other hand, we have at least the reports which indicate that it is relatively deeper, but we do not know the extent of the damage. How many aircraft participated and what is the kind of bombs used? It is said that there were 12 aircraft. How many of them actually went deep inside? We do not yet know. This is Mirage. These are Mirage-2000 and these are the upgraded Dash 5 IN variants. And as you may recall, India has undertaken a fairly serious upgrade of the Mirages and these were done by Hindustan Aeronautics in order to bring them up to date with more contemporary avionics and better weapons systems. It seems as if in this particular strike, 1000 kilo laser guided bombs which are Israeli manufactured and using Israeli laser guidance pods have been used. These pods are on the underside of the Mirages. So, we have now reports of the Pakistani deliberations, the security committee met and the Prime Minister Imran Khan has given a statement and he has said that they are going to take the media, international media also to the spot to show nothing has really happened. Yes, bombs have been used, but they have fallen into essentially empty areas with causing minded damage. And I think some reports indicate one person has been injured. Assuming that no significant damages happen, which it seems if the Prime Minister of Pakistan is saying this is a possibility. Of course, there is another possibility before they take the people, they will remove all the sanitize this area. All these are possibilities. So, we can't really comment on the extent of what has happened right now. Maybe in a few days things have become clearer. Gautam, how do you see this play out between India and Pakistan? Do you see that this standoff likely to continue in the Kargil model or do you think that having done this, therefore India can claim well we have retaliated against the Pulwama suicide bombing. And therefore we are now are honorably satisfied and therefore it will really be something that both countries can for the time being forget except the Sabarattling and move on to India elections. And in Pakistan what Imran Khan has promised to do, put the country back on the development path again. Looks quite likely to play out along the lines that you have suggested. The reason for thinking like that is because if you see the 2016 so-called surgical strike which was actually a border raid which went 500 meters to 2 kilometers inside where they actually attacked the launch pads and some people did die, 39 odd trainers guides as well as supposed to be militants who were killed in that. But even then the DGMO of Indian Army contacted his counterpart and informed him promptly that this was aimed against the militants and it was not against the Pakistan Army. If you look at the statement issued by the Indian foreign secretary he makes it very clear that the target was Jayashem Ahmad Khan which he described as the biggest camp and therefore it was also sending a message to Pakistan that well we were directing our attack to a militant camp and not to any Pakistan military asset or anything which means seems to suggest to me that exactly like it happened in 2016. I don't expect anything more to happen. There will be noises made. It is an interesting point that you are raising because the statement of the foreign secretary goes even further. It says a non-military attack on essentially what is the words actually used non-military attacks are pre-emptive attack. So he calls it a pre-emptive non-military pre-emptive attack. Of course if we use air force it is not non-military but what he probably means is not against your military. So that's what seems to be the intention and he doesn't call it a retaliation against the Pulwama. He calls it a pre-emptive attack because of another attack was forthcoming from Jayash so we took preventive action. Can I add something here? It's also very interesting if you read the statement of the Pakistan's foreign minister Qureshi. He says that now that this attack has taken place he hopes that sense would dawn in India. Now why would they make a suggestion like that unless it seems to me as if it was something which was so to say state managed. I am not saying that the both sides came to an agreement that they would do it but it looks like something where each side is very careful that they do not allow it to escalate beyond their control and result in a bigger combat or confrontation which they would like to avoid. You know but I have two reservations of this. One is that even the First World War did not start with an intent to start the war. So you have unintended consequences and the second is both sides how much control they have over each other and themselves given the fact India is now in an electioneering mode already and the prime minister has already started his campaign. So how much of this saber rattling is controllable and is there a chance of it spinning out of control? As you suggest these things are always however hard you try to calibrate measures. There is always a chance of things spiralling out of control, some trigger happy divisional commander going off on a tangent they are likely. In this case my sense also is India seems to have taken the United States to some extent into confidence that such a strike was going to happen and as you know President Trump who cannot I think keep quiet for very long promptly announced virtually two or three days ago that India is going to take some strong action. So it was clear that something was forthcoming and India had informed the US and I think India would also have taken the step and the US would have correspondingly discussed this with Pakistan saying look this is going to happen it is not going to be aimed against your military. So you also cool it down and just let it pass. But as you say things do not always follow intentions if there is no other response coming from Pakistan if there are no follow up further actions by India then I think things should tamp down from this but time will tell. Yeah Gautam I would like to ask you are also an observer of what is happening in Pakistan doesn't this also challenge Imran Khan's prime ministership after all he has taken charge very recently that if there is no response that is seen at all and let us not forget you know this is how it can always escalate. What is the calibration of a response beyond which the other person will not retaliate further and is that is also that possibility can Imran Khan really not respond at all or can he just respond diplomatically. Well I believe that the chances that Imran Khan's regime today would retaliate I rule it out for two reasons you are absolutely right that things can go out of control even at the you know no matter how well you control all the actors and activities that are going around things can go out of control. One of the most strongest argument in favour of saying that they that they need not be in escalation is precisely because of Indian elections around the corner. This matters as much for Indians as much as for Pakistan too. I will come to explain why I believe so. The second is I think while Pakistan would be tempted and would be under pressure definitely to retaliate going by what happened in 2016 where actually the body count was available to us and there was some at least some credible evidence to suggest that some number of people did die. This time around we don't have any such luck since it was an aerial strike we have to rely now on international media to provide the evidence of of body count and is the body count that will count. If there is very little catch if Pakistan has suffered very little casualties I don't see them coming under pressure but if it is true that suffered as much as what the Indian claim that they have killed 300 militants then of course they will be under pressure. So a lot depends on that evidence. There is also an interesting issue the Iran has also threatened Pakistan for a fedine strike inside Iran of course at that time it was not the local Iranian blowing himself up it really seemed to have come across the border. So we have had two similar actions one of course in this case supported by Jash, claimed by Jash but really as we now know it's the same Jash actually which are actually umbilically linked and in fact more or less at the same time. More or less in fact within 24 hours. So this is also there is this other part that sees a connection between the Saudi, the Pakistanis, the Jash who are all in some sense Iran being clearly a Saudi target and India being clearly a Pakistan target. So this and given the fact that Pakistan, Taliban and American triangle is also now playing out differently. Pakistan is on an internationally stronger wicked than it was earlier. Also because they matter so much for for the Americans if they have to pull back the their troops where we're keeping the you know keeping the prestige intact otherwise they'll face a Saigon like situation I'm sure in Afghanistan. Pakistan is extremely critical for Afghanistan if they want to de-escalate or draw down their forces. Thank you very much Raghu and Gautam to be with us for this discussion. Do keep watching news click and our other discussions.