The four-day military clash between India and Pakistan was the most expansive fighting in half a century between the two nuclear-armed countries. As both sides used drones and missiles to test each other’s air defenses and hit military facilities, they claimed to inflict severe damage.
But satellite imagery indicates that while the attacks were widespread, the damage was far more contained than claimed — and appeared mostly inflicted by India on Pakistani facilities. In a new age of high-tech warfare, strikes by both sides, verified by the imagery, appeared to be precisely targeted.
What is increasingly clear is that both sides suffered casualties among their armed forces, with India acknowledging the loss of five soldiers and Pakistan reporting 11. The heaviest blow to India appears to be the loss of aircraft. While the Indian government has not said how many went down, officials and diplomats say that at least two aircraft were lost, and most likely more.
Where India appears to have had a clear edge is in its targeting of Pakistan’s military facilities and airfields, as the latter stretch of fighting shifted from symbolic strikes and shows of force to attacks on each other’s defense capabilities.
High-resolution satellite imagery, from before and after the strikes, shows clear damage to Pakistan’s facilities by Indian attacks, if limited and precise in nature.
At Bholari air base, located less than 100 miles from the Pakistani port city of Karachi, India’s defense officials said they had struck an aircraft hangar with a precision attack. The visuals showed clear damage to what looks like a hangar.
The Nur Khan air base, within a roughly 15-mile range of both the Pakistani Army’s headquarters and the office of the country’s prime minister and a short distance from the unit that oversees and protects Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, was perhaps the most sensitive military target that India struck.
The Indian military said it had particularly targeted the runways and other facilities at some of Pakistan’s key air bases. Satellite images showed the damage. On May 10, Pakistan issued a notice for Rahim Yar Khan air base saying that the runway was not operational.
At Sargodha air base, in Punjab Province in Pakistan, the Indian military said it had used precision weapons to strike two sections of the runway.
Pakistan’s military listed two dozen Indian military installations and bases that it said its forces had targeted. While Indian officials have acknowledged “limited damage” at four air bases, they have offered few details.
Satellite images of the sites Pakistan claimed to have hit are limited, and so far do not clearly show damage caused by Pakistani strikes even at bases where there was corroborating evidence of some military action.
Pakistani officials, according to state media, said their forces had “destroyed” India’s Udhampur air base. The family of one Indian soldier has confirmed his death on the base. But an image from May 12 does not appear to show damage.
