But he emphasised that hills, which are believed to host Islamabad’s uclear installaations, was not the intended target.
New Delhi: Former Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) General Anil Chauhan has said an Indian loitering munition may have struck Pakistan’s Kirana Hills during Operation Sindoor after spending its roughly two-hour endurance searching for radars around Sargodha.
One of the weapons may have ended up striking the Kirana Hills area after failing to find a radar target within its operating time. The revealation gives an explanation for the reports that emerged during Operation Sindoor about activity around Kirana Hills. He explained that the weapons had a limited operating time and were meant to search for a target during that period. “So the loiter ammunition was looking for radars which were in and around Sargodha and it has got a lifetime. It will loiter for about two hours and if it doesn’t find a target, it will come and hit somewhere. The details suggest that the munition’s mission involved searching for radars around Sargodha, rather than targeting Pakistan’s nuclear facilities. It has long been part of Pakistan’s strategic military network and is believed to host parts of its nuclear infrastructure. Its proximity to Sargodha, which has a major Pakistani airbase, made the area important to military operations during the offensive. The campaign included attacks on terror infrastructure and Pakistani military facilities. Chauhan’s explanation now provides an operational account of how such an incident could have occurred without Kirana Hills being selected as a target. Loitering munitions are designed to spend time over a designated area searching for targets before attacking them. They can use onboard sensors to locate radar systems or other military targets and are particularly useful in missions where the exact location of an enemy system may not be known. This is also why the incident should not be described as a deliberate strike on a nuclear facility.
Speaking at an event organised by the Vivekananda International Foundation in New Delhi on August 25, he explained that Indian loitering munitions had been sent towards Sargodha to search for Pakistani radar systems. Kirana Hills is around 10 km from Sargodha, placing it close to the area where the weapons were searching for radar emissions. The operation began after the April 22, 2025, Pahalgam terror attack and involved Indian strikes on multiple targets in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir.
General Chauhan said Indian forces had sent several loitering munitions towards Sargodha. “Before those strikes, we had sent a lot of loiter ammunition at Sargodha, and Kirana Hills is 10 km north of Sargodha,” he said. It must have come and hit one of those hills,” he said. He also backed former IAF Director General of Air Operations Air Marshal AK Bharti, who had said that India did not target the Kirana Hills. The former CDS said the ex-air marshal had been right in making that distinction.
Chauhan also disclosed that the Indian Air Force had received approval to strike Pakistan’s Skardu airbase during the operation. “The chief had asked me whether he should strike Sargodha. One of the targets he had identified was Skardu. His revealations made it clear that India’s intent was purely suppression of enemy air defenses. The assets deployed, which is a radar hunting loitering munition like Harop, was programmed to dominate the airspace, forcing hostile radars to stay dark or face destruction. It circled for full two-hour endurance, finding no active emission to engage, its operational clock simply ran out. This was not a stray mistake born of poor capability. It was the calculated saturation of hostile skies, using smart and autonomous assets. When the fuel exhausted, physics took over and the munition impacted the terrain. So, when the world asked where Kirana Hills was hit, the binary answers of wartime propaganda missed the entire point. This is new form of war where smart weapons dominate the airspace and even an unguided landing can project strategic detterance.
Because of bad weather, the plan was later changed. The Bholari strike later became one of the prominent Indian attacks during the May 10 air campaign, with satellite imagery showing damage to a Pakistani airbase hangar.
I said, ‘Go ahead’ and added, ‘Please identify two more targets. We gave a yes, but after some time, the weather was bad in Skardu, and they had to change over to Bholari,” Chauhan said.
A weapon that failed to find a suitable target during its available loitering period would eventually descend and strike the ground.
In this case, according to Chauhan, the munitions were sent towards Sargodha to locate radars.
