The Pakistani government has acknowledged, for the first time in detail, the impact of India’s strategic and precision strikes on its military installation under Operation Sindoor in May, eight months after the four-day armed conflict between the two countries. The admission came from Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar, who confirmed that Indian drones struck the Nur Khan airbase in Rawalpindi’s Chaklala area, damaging the key military installation and injuring personnel.
“In 36 hours, at least 80 drones were sent,” Dar, who is also the foreign minister, said, underlining the scale of the operation. He, however, claimed Pakistan was “able to intercept 79 drones out of 80.”
“India then made the mistake of attacking the Nur Khan Airbase in the early hours of May 10, prompting Pakistan’s retaliatory operation,” he said while speaking during the year-end press briefing last week.
India had launched Operation Sindoor in the early hours of May 7, 2025, to avenge the massacre of 26 civilians by terrorists in Pahalgam, Jammu and Kashmir, on April 26.
Shehbaz Sharif’s deputy’s comments marked a notable shift from Islamabad’s earlier stance, which had largely played down the extent of damage caused by Indian strikes.
Dar further stated that Islamabad did not request mediation between Pakistan and India during the May conflict, claiming that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan expressed a desire to speak with New Delhi. He claimed that on May 10, Rubio called him at around 8.17 am, in which he conveyed that India was ready for a ceasefire and asked whether Pakistan would agree.
“I said we never wanted to go to war,” Dar added.
He further said Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal later contacted him seeking permission to speak with India and “subsequently confirmed that a ceasefire had been agreed.”
Dar also claimed that Pakistan shot down seven Indian jets during the May 7 air battle, without providing any evidence in support of his claims. The minister reiterated Pakistan’s position that lasting peace in the region is linked to a resolution of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute.
Dar’s admission came after Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari acknowledged that his military secretary had advised him to move to a bunker during the four-day conflict with India in May. However, he had declined that advice, he told a public gathering on Saturday.
After the strikes started, Zardari revealed that his military secretary had requested him to take shelter in a bunker.
“He (the secretary) came to me and said that ‘war has begun. Let’s go to the bunkers.’ But I told him that if martyrdom is to come, it will come here. Leaders don’t die in bunkers. They die on the battlefield,” the Pakistani president said in his speech, indicating the highest levels of alarm that rang in the power corridors of Islamabad after India’s strikes.
Zardari also claimed that he was aware of the war four days earlier.
Recently, satellite images emerged indicating that reconstruction activity was underway at Pakistan’s Nur Khan airbase after India’s Op Sindoor strikes in May this year.
Nur Khan, a strategic airbase located less than 25 km from Islamabad, houses key assets of the Pakistan Air Force.
While India has never confirmed which missiles it used, there is a strong possibility that the facility in Nur Khan was taken out by BrahMos or SCALP air-launched land attack missiles, or both. During Op Sindoor, the BrahMos was launched from the Indian Air Force’s Su-30 fighters, while the SCALP was launched from the Rafale.