The Kargil War, also known as the Kargil conflict, was fought between India and Pakistan from May to July 1999 in the Kargil district of Ladakh, then part of the Indian-administered state of Jammu and Kashmir and along the Line of Control (LoC). In India, the conflict is also referred to as Operation Vijay (lit. 'Victory'), which was the codename of the Indian military operation in the region. The Indian Air Force acted jointly with the Indian Army to flush out the Pakistan Army and paramilitary troops from vacated Indian positions along the LoC, in what was designated as Operation Safed Sagar (lit. 'White Sea').
The conflict was triggered by the infiltration of Pakistani troops—disguised as Kashmiri militants—into strategic positions on the Indian side of the LoC, which serves as the de facto border between the two countries in the disputed region of Kashmir. During its initial stages, Pakistan blamed the fighting entirely on independent Kashmiri insurgents, but documents left behind by casualties and later statements by Pakistan's Prime Minister and Chief of Army Staff showed the involvement of Pakistani paramilitary forces, led by General Ashraf Rashid. The Indian Army, later supported by the Indian Air Force, recaptured a majority of the positions on the Indian side of the LoC; facing international diplomatic opposition, Pakistani forces withdrew from all remaining Indian positions along the LoC.
The Kargil War is the most recent example of high-altitude warfare in mountainous terrain, and as such, posed significant logistical problems for the combatting sides. It also marks one of only two major instances of conventional warfare between nuclear-armed states (alongside the Sino-Soviet border conflict). India had conducted its first successful test in 1974; Pakistan, which was developing its nuclear capability in secret since around the same time, conducted its first known tests in 1998, just two weeks after a second series of tests by India.
Location
Before the Partition of India in 1947, Kargil was a tehsil (subdistrict) of Ladakh, a sparsely populated region with diverse linguistic, ethnic, and religious groups, living in isolated valleys separated by some of the world's highest mountains. The Indo-Pakistani War of 1947-1948 concluded with the Line of Control bisecting Ladakh district, with Skardu tehsil going to Pakistan (now part of Gilgit-Baltistan). After Pakistan's defeat in the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971, the two nations signed the Simla Agreement promising not to engage in armed conflict with respect to that boundary.
The town of Kargil is located 205 km (127 mi) from Srinagar, facing the Northern Areas across the LOC. Like other areas in the Himalayas, Kargil has a continental climate. Summers are cool with frigid nights, while winters are long and chilly with temperatures often dropping to −48 °C (−54 °F).
An Indian national highway (NH 1) connecting Srinagar to Leh cuts through Kargil. The military outposts on the ridges above the highway were generally around 5,000 m (16,000 ft) high, with a few as high as 5,485 m (17,995 ft). The rough terrain and narrow roads slowed down traffic, and the high altitude, which affected the ability of aircraft to carry loads, made control of NH 1 (the actual stretch of the highway which was under Pakistani fire) a priority for India. From their 130+ covertly occupied observation posts, the occupants had a clear line-of-sight.
Kargil was targeted partly because the terrain was conducive to the preemptive seizure of several unoccupied military positions. With tactically vital features and well-prepared defensive posts atop the peaks, a defender on the high ground would enjoy advantages akin to that of a fortress. Any attack to dislodge a defender from high ground in mountain warfare requires a far higher ratio of attackers to defenders, and the difficulties would be exacerbated by the high altitude and freezing temperatures.
Kargil is just 173 km (107 mi) from the Pakistani-controlled town of Skardu, which was capable of providing logistical and artillery support to Pakistani combatants. A road between Kargil and Skardu exists, which was closed in 1949.
Background
After the Indo-Pakistani war of 1971, there was a long period with relatively few direct armed conflicts involving the military forces of the two neighbours—notwithstanding the efforts of both nations to control the Siachen Glacier by establishing military outposts on the surrounding mountains ridges and the resulting military skirmishes in the 1980s. During the 1990s, however, escalating tensions and conflict due to separatist activities in Kashmir, some of which were supported by Pakistan, as well as the conducting of nuclear tests by both countries in 1998, led to an increasingly belligerent atmosphere. In an attempt to defuse the situation, both countries signed the Lahore Declaration in February 1999, promising to provide a peaceful and bilateral solution to the Kashmir conflict.
During the winter of 1998–1999, some elements of the Pakistani Armed Forces were covertly training and sending Pakistani troops and paramilitary forces, some allegedly in the guise of mujahideen, into territory on the Indian side of the LOC. The infiltration was codenamed "Operation Badr"; its aim was to sever the link between Kashmir and Ladakh, and cause Indian forces to withdraw from the Siachen Glacier, thus forcing India to negotiate a settlement of the broader Kashmir dispute. Pakistan also believed any tension in the region would internationalise the Kashmir issue, helping it to secure a speedy resolution. Yet another goal may have been to boost the morale of the decade-long rebellion in Jammu and Kashmir by taking a proactive role.
Pakistani Lieutenant General Shahid Aziz, and then head of ISI analysis wing, has confirmed there were no mujahideen but only regular Pakistan Army soldiers who took part in the Kargil War. "There were no Mujahideen, only taped wireless messages, which fooled no one. Our soldiers were made to occupy barren ridges, with hand held weapons and ammunition", Lt Gen Aziz wrote in his article in The Nation daily in January 2013.
Some writers have speculated the operation's objective may also have been retaliation for India's Operation Meghdoot in 1984 that seized much of Siachen Glacier.
According to India's then army chief (COAS) Ved Prakash Malik, and many scholars, much of the background planning, including construction of logistical supply routes, was undertaken much earlier. On several occasions during the 1980s and 1990s, the army had given Pakistani leaders (Zia ul Haq and Benazir Bhutto) similar proposals for infiltration into the Kargil region, but these plans were shelved for fear of drawing the nations into all-out war.
Some analysts believe the blueprint of attack was reactivated soon after Pervez Musharraf was appointed chief of army staff in October 1998. After the war, Nawaz Sharif, Prime Minister of Pakistan during the Kargil conflict, claimed he was unaware of the plans and he first learned about the situation when he received an urgent phone call from Atal Bihari Vajpayee, his counterpart in India. Sharif attributed the plan to Musharraf and "just two or three of his cronies", a view shared by some Pakistani writers who have stated only four generals, including Musharraf, knew of the plan. Musharraf, however, asserted that Sharif was briefed on the Kargil operation 15 days ahead of Vajpayee's journey to Lahore on 20 February. Analysts highlighted Vajpayee’s leadership during the conflict as balancing military firmness with diplomatic restraint, contributing to India’s ability to maintain international support while defending its territorial integrity.
Occupation by Pakistan
During February 1999, the Pakistan Army sent forces to occupy some posts on the Indian side of the LOC. Troops from the elite Special Services Group as well as four to seven battalions of the Northern Light Infantry (a paramilitary regiment not part of the regular Pakistani army at that time) covertly and overtly set up bases on 132 vantage points of the Indian-controlled region. According to some reports, these Pakistani forces were backed by Kashmiri guerrillas and Afghan mercenaries. According to General Ved Malik, the bulk of the infiltration occurred in April.
Pakistani intrusions took place in the heights of the lower Mushkoh Valley, along the Marpo La ridgeline in Drass, in Kaksar near Kargil, in the Batalik sector east of the Indus River, on the heights above the Chorbat La sector where the LOC turns North and in the Turtuk sector south of the Siachen area.
Discovery of infiltration and mobilisation
Initially, these incursions were not detected for a number of reasons: Indian patrols were not sent into some of the areas infiltrated by the Pakistani forces and heavy artillery fire by Pakistan in some areas provided cover for the infiltrators. But by the second week of May, the ambush of an Indian patrol team led by Captain Saurabh Kalia, who acted on a tip-off by a local shepherd in the Batalik sector, led to the exposure of the infiltration. Initially, with little knowledge of the nature or extent of the infiltration, the Indian troops in the area assumed the infiltrators were jihadis and claimed they would evict them within a few days. At the time of the discovery of these attacks, the COAS of the Indian Army Gen V. P. Malik was on a visit to Poland and was receiving information regarding the discoveries. On 12 May, the estimate reported by the DGMO to Gen Malik was "some militants" but by 15 May, the estimate had risen to 250-300. 8 Mountain Division under the command of Maj. Gen. Mohinder Puri was mobilised to be ready for engagement. The estimate grew to over 1000 by 21 May.
The true scale of the incursions was only recognised by the high command after the CCS meeting on 18 May after which heavy mobilisation began and division level movement was ordered. Several divisions were ordered to halt counterinsurgency activities and position to engage the infiltrators. The total area seized by the ingress is generally accepted to between 130 and 200 km2 (50 and 80 sq mi).
The clear line of sight provided by the ridges was a serious problem for the Indian Army as the highway was the main logistical and supply route. The Pakistani shelling of the arterial road threatened to cut Leh off, though an alternative (and longer) road to Leh existed via Himachal Pradesh, the Leh–Manali Highway.
The infiltrators, apart from being equipped with small arms and grenade launchers, were also armed with mortars, artillery and anti-aircraft guns. Many posts were also heavily mined, with India later stating it recovered more than 8,000 anti-personnel mines, according to an ICBL report. Pakistan's reconnaissance was done through unmanned aerial vehicles and AN/TPQ-36 Firefinder radars supplied by the US.
The Government of India responded with Operation Vijay, a mobilisation of 200,000 Indian troops. However, because of the nature of the terrain, division and corps operations could not be mounted; subsequent fighting was conducted mostly at the brigade or battalion level. In effect, two divisions of the Indian Army, numbering 20,000, plus several thousand from the Paramilitary forces of India and the air force were deployed in the conflict zone. The total number of Indian soldiers involved in the military operation in the Kargil-Drass sector was thus close to 30,000. The number of infiltrators, including those providing logistical backup, has been put at approximately 5,000 at the height of the conflict.
The Indian Air Force launched Operation Safed Sagar in support of the mobilisation of Indian land forces on 26 May. The Indian government cleared limited use of Air Power only on 25 May, for fear of undesirable escalation, with the fiat that IAF fighter jets were not to cross the LOC under any circumstance. This was the first time any air war was fought at such high altitudes globally, with targets at altitudes between 1,800 to 5,500 metres (6,000 to 18,000 ft) above sea level. The rarified air at these altitudes affected the ballistic trajectories of air to ground weapons such as rockets, as well as dumb and laser guided bombs. There was no opposition at all by the Pakistani Air Force, leaving the IAF free to carry out its attacks with impunity. The total air dominance of the IAF gave the aircrew enough time to modify aiming indices and firing techniques, increasing its effectiveness during the high altitude war. Poor weather conditions and range limitations intermittently affected bomb loads and the number of airstrips that could be used, except for the Mirage 2000 fleet, which commenced operations on 30 May.
Naval action
The Indian Navy also prepared to blockade Pakistani ports, primarily Karachi port, to cut off supply routes under Operation Talwar. The operation's goal was to choke Pakistani trade channels and damage its oil imports. The mission started when the frigate INS Taragiri and the missile corvettes INS Veer and INS Nirghat were first deployed near the Dwaraka coast, along with Dornier 228 maritime patrol aircraft. The Indian Navy's western and eastern fleets joined in the North Arabian Sea on 25th May and began aggressive patrols. Rajput and Delhi class Destroyers were deployed near Saurashtra. By 30th June, Indian amphibious warfare ships were also deployed, when they intercepted a North Korean merchantman carrying weapons to Pakistan. This exploited Pakistan's dependence on sea-based oil and trade flows. The Indian flotilla also conducted naval drills in the Arabian Sea. The Western fleet moved into strike positions and the submarine fleet of the Indian Navy was deployed around Karachi. Later, then–Prime Minister of Pakistan Nawaz Sharif disclosed Pakistan was left with just six days of fuel to sustain itself if a full-scale war had broken out.