In the early hours of June 13, 1999, at the height of the Kargil War, Indian Air Force fighter pilots were minutes away from launching a full-fledged air attack deep inside Pakistan. Targets had been assigned, route maps finalised personal revolvers to be carried by pilots had been loaded with ammunition and Pakistani currency collected, for use if pilots had to eject on the other side of the Line of Control and orchestrate an escape.
The Kargil war also known as the Kargil conflict was an armed conflict between India and Pakistan that took place between May and July 1999 in the Kargil district of Kashmir and elsewhere along the Line of Control. In India, the conflict is also referred to as Operation Vijay ("Victory") which was the name of the Indian operation to clear the Kargil sector
The cause of the war was the infiltration of Pakistani soldiers and Kashmiri militants into positions on the Indian side of the LOC which serves as the di fecto border between the two states. During the initial stages of the war, 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 involvement of Pakistani paramilitary forces
The war is one of the most recent examples of high_altitude warfare in mountainous terrain which posed significant logistical problems for the combating sides. It is one of the very few instances of direct conventional warfare between nuclear states (i.e., those possessing nuclear weapons).
After the Indo_Pakistani War of 1971 there had been 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 Siachan Glacier by establishing military outposts on the surrounding mountains ridges and the resulting military skirmishes in the 1980s.
Pakistan also believed that any tension in the region would internationalise the Kashmir issue helping it to secure a speed y resolution. Yet another goal may have been to boost the morale of the decade-long rebellion in Indian Administered Kashmir by taking a proactive role.
The mission itself came with extraordinary risks; the possibility that a few jets would be shot down was very likely. Pakistan’s premier fighters, the F-16s, were waiting on the other side, flying patrols between Rawalpindi and Kahuta to detect and intercept any Indian strike mission
