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{{Short description|1999 Indian military operation}}
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[[File:MiG-23 Bn Aircraft.jpg|thumb|right|A [[MiG-23]] Bn used in Operation Safed Sagar]]

{{campaignbox Kargil War}}
{{campaignbox Indo-Pakistani Wars}}

'''Operation Safed Sagar''' ({{langx|hi|ऑपरेशन सफेद सागर}}, lit. "Operation White Ocean") was the [[code name]] assigned to the [[Indian Air Force]]'s role in acting jointly with the [[Indian Army]] during the 1999 [[Kargil War|Kargil war]] that was aimed at flushing out regular and irregular troops of the [[Pakistani Army]] from vacated Indian Positions in the [[Kargil district|Kargil]] sector along the [[Line of Control]].<ref name="indianairforce.nic.in">[http://indianairforce.nic.in/content/op-safed-sagar Operation Safed Sagar] indianairforce.nic.in</ref> It was the first large scale use of [[Airpower]] in the [[Kashmir|Jammu and Kashmir]] region since the [[Indo-Pakistani War of 1971]].

==Background==

[[Indo-Pakistani wars and conflicts]] includes the [[Kashmir conflict]] and it's subsidiary conflicts such [[Siachen conflict]] and [[Trans-Karakoram Tract]], which are the disputed territories of [[List of disputed territories of India|India]] and [[:Category:Territorial disputes of Pakistan|Pakistan]] on the India-Pakistan border ([[Actual Ground Position Line]] (AGPL), [[Line of Control]] (LoC), [[India–Pakistan border|India–Pakistan International Border]] (IB), and [[Sir Creek]] (SC)) which had earlier seen many operations including 1984 [[Operation Meghdoot]] and 1987 [[Operation Rajiv]].

==Operations==
{{main|Kargil War}}

===Operation Badr: Pakistani ground infiltrations ===

Initial infiltrations were noticed in [[Kargil district|Kargil]] in early May 1999. Because of the extreme winter weather in Kashmir, it was common practice for the Indian and Pakistan Army to abandon forward posts and reoccupy them in the spring. That particular spring, the Pakistan Army started reoccupying the forward posts well before the scheduled time. In a preliminary step in their bid to capture Kashmir, they reoccupied not only their own posts, but also 132 posts that belonged to India.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ti_xPBoC8hY|title = Guns and Glory Episode 7: 1999 Indo-Pak War in Kargil, Part 1|website = [[YouTube]]}}</ref>

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 the exposure of the infiltration. Initially with little knowledge of the nature or extent of the encroachment, the Indian troops in the area initially claimed that they would evict them within a few days. However, reports of infiltration elsewhere along the LoC soon made it clear that the entire plan of attack was on a much bigger scale.<ref name=pakinf1/> 

===Operation Vijay: India's ground operation ===

[[Government of India|India]] responded with [[Operation Vijay (1999)|Operation Vijay]], a mobilisation of 200,000 Indian troops. However, because of the nature of the terrain, [[division (military)|division]] and [[corps]] operations could not be mounted; the scale of most fighting was at the [[regiment]]al or battalion level. In effect, two [[Division (military)|divisions]] of the Indian Army,<ref name=pakinf1>{{cite journal |url=http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/MONITOR/ISSUE4-6/malik.html |url-status=dead|title=Lessons from Kargil. |first1=V.P. |last1=Malik |journal=Bharat-Rakshak Monitor |issue=May–June 2002 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090408082728/http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/MONITOR/ISSUE4-6/malik.html |archive-date=8 April 2009 }}</ref> numbering 20,000, along with several thousand from the [[Paramilitary forces of India]] and the air force were deployed in the conflict zone.
the [[Indian Army]] moved into the region in full force. The intruders were found to be well entrenched and while artillery attacks had produced results in certain areas, more remote ones needed the help of the air force. To avoid the escalation, the [[Government of India]] (GoI) cleared only limited use of Air Power on May 25, more than three weeks after first reports, with the instructions that IAF fighter jets will remain within Indian territory to launch attack on intruder's position within Indian territory and IAF was not permitted to cross the Line of Control under any circumstance.

===Operation Safed Sagar: India's air operation===

Breakdown of Total Number of Sorties Flown by Aircraft Type:<ref>{{cite web |url=http://vayu-sena.tripod.com/kargil-summary1.html/ |title=Kargil War, Progress of Air Operations |work=VayuSena}}<br />States that the ''IAF and MoD Annual Report'' are the sources for this data.</ref>
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Type         !! Number of Sorties !! % Effort 
|-
| Transport    ||      3427         || 44.9%
|-
| Helicopters       ||      2474         || 32.4%
|-
| Fighters     ||      1730         || 22.7%
|-
| Total        ||      7831         || 
|}
Breakdown of Air Operations by Task (Fast Jets)
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Role        !! Number of Sorties !! % Effort
|-
| Air Strikes || 578 || 48%
|-
| CAP & Escort || 462 || 39%
|-
| Recce || 159 || 13%
|-
| Total || 1199 || 
|}

==Aftermath==

The lessons learned in this limited war influenced Indian Air Force to upgrade its combat fleet. It acquired and later started co-developing [[Sukhoi]] [[Su-30MKI]] heavy fighters with Russia beginning in the early 2000s. Development of [[HAL Tejas]] was also accelerated. {{Citation needed|date=August 2021}}

==See also==

; Borders
* [[Line of Actual Control]] (LAC)
* [[Borders of China]]
* [[Borders of India]]
* [[:Category:Borders of Pakistan|Borders of Pakistan]]

; Other related topics
* [[Awards and decorations of the Indian Armed Forces]]
* [[India-China Border Roads]]
* [[List of extreme points of India]]
* [[Sino-Pakistan Agreement]] for transfer of Trans-Karakoram Tract to China

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
*{{citation |url=http://indianarmy.nic.in/arkargil/news.htm |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060212014057/http://indianarmy.nic.in/arkargil/news.htm |archive-date=12 February 2006 |date=15 July 1999 |title=Kargil Update, Indian Air Force. Periodic Updates – Operation Safed Sagar |work=Indian Army, Government of India}}
*{{cite journal |url=http://mod.nic.in/samachar/oct01-02/html/ch2.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120717064424/http://mod.nic.in/samachar/oct01-02/html/ch2.htm |archive-date=17 July 2012 |title=Operation Safed Sagar: A Doctrine Rewritten |journal=[[Sainik Samachar]] |issue=October 2001}}

{{military of Pakistan}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Safed Sagar 1999}}
[[Category:Military operations of the Kargil War]]
[[Category:Aerial operations and battles of the Indo-Pakistani wars]]
[[Category:Operations involving the Indian Air Force]]