Marking 26 years of military operations – Operation Vijay, Operation Safed Sagar, and Operation Talwar – of the Kargil war, the Ministry of Defence on Wednesday reminisced about how the Indian Armed Forces got the region freed from Pakistani intruders in a professionally coordinated manner.
“26 years of #Kargil – During the Kargil conflict in May 1999, the Indian Army commenced Operation Vijay to push back the Pakistani incursion in the Kargil region. This involved recapturing key peaks and ridges.
The Indian Air Force launched Operation Safed Sagar with recce missions and targeted air strikes, thereby effectively crippling the enemy.
Simultaneously, the Indian Navy moved its fleets to the northern Arabian Sea and began aggressive patrols, threatening to blockade the enemy’s ports and cut off their supply/trade routes,” the Ministry said in a post on X.
Marking the anniversary of Operation Safed Sagar on Monday, the Indian Air Force talked about its air operations during the Kargil war that it launched on May 26, 1999, to support ground forces under Operation Vijay.
“This was the first large-scale use of air power in the Kashmir region since the 1971 Indo-Pak War. Never before had an air force been tasked with such high-altitude precision operations in rugged mountainous terrain, making it a watershed moment in military aviation history,” the IAF had posted on X.
Interestingly, the 26th anniversary of Safed Sagar was marked after the Indian Armed Forces struck terrorists’ hideouts and airbases of Pakistan a few weeks ago under Operation Sindoor, launched in response to the Pahalgam terror attack, wherein 26 innocent people were killed.
The Kargil war, which broke out in May 1999, was fought on the mountains in the region for nearly three months.
It started after Pakistani troops and terrorists intruded and occupied mountain peaks in the Kargil sector.
Responding to it, India launched Operation Vijay to reclaim the territory and regained full control over the region on July 26, the day which is now marked as ‘Kargil Vijay Diwas’.