Operation Safed Sagar
OPERATION SAFED SAGAR Operation Safed Sagar was the code name assigned to the Indian Air Force's strike to support the Ground troops during Operation Vijay that was aimed to flush out Regular and Irregular troops of the Pakistani Army from Indian Positions in the Kargil sector along the Line of Control. It was the first large scale use of air power in the Jammu and Kashmir region since the Indo-Pakistan War of 1971. Ground Operations Initial infiltrations were noticed in Kargil in early May, 1999. Because of the extreme winter weather in Kashmir it was common practice for the Indian and Pakistani Army to abandon forward posts and reoccupy them in the spring. That particular spring, the Pakistan Army reoccupied the forward posts before the scheduled time not only theirs but also the posts which belonged to India, in a bid to capture Kashmir. By the second week of May, an ambush on an Indian army patrol acting on a tip- off by a local shepherd in the Batalik sector led to