New Delhi: A single missile. Thirty seconds. That’s all Pakistan had when India’s BrahMos slammed into the Nur Khan Airbase – simply minutes from Islamabad. No early warning. No clear warhead signature. No time to guess whether or not it carried a traditional payload or a nuclear one.
Rana Sanaullah Khan, particular assistant to Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif, went public. He mentioned that 30-second window practically sparked a nuclear chain response. His phrases weren’t laced with bravado. They carried the tremor of a nation that discovered itself dealing with the unthinkable.
“The Pakistani authorities had simply 30-45 seconds to analyse whether or not the missile has any atomic payload. To make such a call in simply 30 seconds is a harmful factor,” Khan mentioned throughout a televised interview.
When India launched that BrahMos – what Khan mistakenly known as “Harmus” – the Pakistani excessive command scrambled. Inside Nur Khan, alarms rang. Pilots rushed to cockpits. Radar items lit up. In struggle rooms, generals debated retaliation. However the warhead was non-nuclear. Delhi was not urgent the crimson button but.
Nonetheless, that second tore open Islamabad’s greatest concern – a exact and fast Indian strike that would knock out crucial nodes earlier than Pakistan had time to retaliate.
Nur Khan isn’t any airbase. It lies inside a dense army ecosystem – adjoining to VIP terminals, close to Islamabad’s civilian airport and dangerously near Pakistan’s nuclear mind – the Strategic Plans Division.
That division doesn’t simply handle warheads. It plans for survival. It displays threats. It guards command centres. Successful this shut, even with a traditional weapon, rattled nerves on the very prime.
Khan, in a latest interview, mentioned U.S. President Donald Trump helped cease it from spiraling. He credit the previous him with stepping in, easing tensions and pulling the area again from the sting. India has pushed again on that narrative.
Officers say it was Pakistan’s personal DGMO who reached out first determined to keep away from escalation after the BrahMos strike uncovered their air defenses.
That night time, Indian jets, aside from Nur Khan, focused different airbases too. Runways had been cratered. Refueling belongings had been disabled. By morning, Islamabad had misplaced air dominance over key northern sectors. And with every passing hour, Pakistan’s retaliatory choices narrowed.
The Nur Khan base, as soon as RAF Station Chaklala, has lengthy been a high-value asset. It hosts Pakistan’s key transport squadrons, refueling plane and serves as the principle VIP air terminal for army brass and state leaders.
Extra importantly, it’s nestled within the shadow of Islamabad’s strategic district the place the traces between civilian governance and nuclear command blur.
The bottom can be lower than a dozen kilometers from what many imagine are Pakistan’s ahead nuclear storage items. In keeping with reviews by The New York Instances and different Western intelligence sources, Nur Khan base is crucial to Pakistan’s nuclear deployment community.
That’s what made the BrahMos impression so harmful. It was not solely a gap in a tarmac. It was a message – an illustration of India’s attain, precision and willingness to focus on belongings deep inside enemy territory.
Pakistan, which maintains a coverage of ambiguity over its nuclear doctrine, needed to learn between the traces. Was this a decapitation try? A tender warning? Or a trial run for a much bigger operation?
Khan’s admission adjustments the narrative. For the primary time, a sitting Pakistani official has acknowledged how shut the nation got here to misreading India’s intent and launching one thing way more devastating in response.
This was a second the place miscalculation might have meant mushroom clouds.
India’s no-first-use doctrine stays intact. However New Delhi has redefined how typical superiority can be utilized for coercive diplomacy. A strike like Nur Khan is a geopolitical sign.
As for Trump, Pakistan’s Discipline Marshal Asim Munir has already floated the thought of a Nobel Peace Prize for him. That could be diplomatic theatre. Nevertheless it additionally reveals how rattled Rawalpindi was and the way badly they needed to de-escalate with out trying weak.
Immediately, Nur Khan base nonetheless stands. However its scars run deeper than concrete. They reside within the transient seconds when Pakistan’s management stared into the nuclear abyss and waited.