- An Indian loitering drone struck Kirana Hills unintentionally during Operation Sindoor
- General Anil Chauhan clarified the drone ran out of fuel near Kirana Hills while seeking radars
- The drone was likely an Israeli-designed Harop used to target radars around Sargodha
An Indian loitering munition -- a drone -- did indeed strike Pakistan's Kirana Hills, a nuclear hub of the Pakistani armed forces during Operation Sindoor last year, though the strike was not deliberate.
Ending the mystery over what happened at Kirana Hills, the former Chief of Defence Staff, General Anil Chauhan, clarified that an Indian loitering munition -- likely an Israeli-designed Harop drone -- was searching for radars to strike but had run short on fuel in the vicinity of Kirana Hills.
"Bharti had rightly clarified that we did not target Kirana Hills," said General Chauhan who was speaking at the Vivekananda Centre in New Delhi. 'Bharti' was Air Marshal AK Bharti (retired), the IAF's Director General of Air Operations during Operation Sindoor.
"I can give an explanation," said General Chauhan. "Before those strikes, we had sent a lot of loiter ammunitions at Sargodha and Kirana Hills, which is 10 km north of Sargodha. So the loiter ammunition was looking for radars which were in and around Sargodha and its got a lifetime. It will loiter for about two hours and if it doesn't find a target, it will come and hit somewhere. It must have come and hit one of those hills.''
The General also confirmed that the Indian Air Force (IAF) had been cleared to launch an attack on Skardu in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (PoK), a mission which was scrubbed because of bad weather.
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"The Chief had asked me whether he should strike Sargodha. I said, 'Go ahead' and added, 'Please identify two more targets.' One of the targets he had identified was Skardu. We gave a yes, but after some time, the weather was bad in Skardu, and they had to change over to Bholari," said General Chauhan.
The IAF's assault on the Bholari hangar arguably became the most striking visual symbol of the May 10 air campaign. The attack was launched by the IAF's Gandhinagar-based South Western Air Command.
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Satellite imagery, first aired by NDTV, revealed a large, jagged breach torn through the roof of the structure, with a dark, caved-in space visible beneath. Wreckage was strewn across the apron connecting the hangar to the runway, indicating the blast had thrown debris outward. The damage appeared tightly contained to that one building, pointing to a precise strike.
