India’s strikes on airbases forced Pak to seek truce: Dar

Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar, in a televised interview, has stated that India attacked two important airbases in Pakistan — Nur Khan in Rawalpindi and Shorkot (Rafiqui) — during Operation Sindoor, prompting it to seek a ceasefire.

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Dar, who is also the Foreign Minister, in an interview with Geo News, said Saudi Arabia had also offered to intervene to help end the conflict between India and Pakistan. Dar said after India launched the May 9-10 strikes, within 45 minutes, Saudi Prince Faisal bin Salman called up and said he had just learnt about “my conversation with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio”.

The Saudi Prince asked if he was authorised to talk to (India’s External Affairs Minister) S Jaishankar and convey that “we are ready if they (India) stop. I said yes, brother, you can”.

The Prince then called me again within a few minutes, saying “he had conveyed the same to Jaishankar”, Dar said during the TV interview.

“The attacks occurred just as Pakistan was preparing to strike back,” Dar said.

India had launched Operation Sindoor in response to the brutal April 22 terror attack in Pahalgam in which 26 civilians were killed.

According to India, the action was “precise, measured and non-escalatory”, targeting only terror-related infrastructure and installations involved in planning or supporting cross-border attacks.

Dar said Islamabad also reached out to the US in the hope of stopping further military escalation by India.

Earlier on May 29, Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had publicly admitted that the Indian armed forces had pre-empted Islamabad’s planned offensive on the intervening night of May 9 and 10 when India launched BrahMos missiles to strike its key military bases, including the one at Rawalpindi.

The Tribune, in its May 11 edition, was the first to report that IAF jets — the Sukhoi-30 MKI with its onboard missile BrahMos — targeted the base at Rawalpindi and others, making it the first operational firing of the BrahMos.

“On the night of May 9 and 10, we decided to respond in a measured fashion to Indian aggression. Our armed forces were prepared to act at 4.30 in the morning after Fajr prayers to teach a lesson. However, before that, India once again launched a missile attack using BrahMos, targeting various provinces of Pakistan, including the airport in Rawalpindi,” Sharif had said while addressing an event in Azerbaijan.