War progress
The Kargil War had three major phases. First, Pakistan captured several strategic high points in the Indian-controlled section of Kashmir. India responded by first capturing strategic transportation routes, then militarily pushing Pakistani forces back across the Line of Control.
Occupation by Pakistan
Because of the extreme winter weather in Kashmir, Indian and Pakistan Army commonly abandoned forward posts, reoccupying them in the spring. That particular spring, the Pakistan Army reoccupied the forward posts before the scheduled time.
In early May 1999, the Pakistan Army decided to occupy the Kargil posts, numbering around 130, and thus control the area. Troops from the elite Special Services Group as well as four to seven battalionsof the Northern Light Infantry (a paramilitary regiment distinct from the regular Pakistani army at that time) backed by Kashmiri guerrillas and Afghan mercenaries covertly and overtly set up bases on the vantage points of the Indian-controlled region. Initially, those incursions went unnoticed due to the heavy artillery fire by Pakistan across the Line of Control, which provided cover for the infiltrators. But by the second week of May, the ambushing of an Indian patrol team, 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 claimed that they would evict them within a few days. Reports of infiltration elsewhere along the LoC made it clear that the entire plan of attack came on a much bigger scale. The total area seized by the ingress had been between 130 km² - 200 km²; Musharraf stated that Pakistan occupied 500 Mi2(1,300 km²) of Indian territory.
The Government of India responded with Operation Vijay, a mobilization of 200,000 Indian troops. Because of the nature of the terrain, division and corps operations had to be suspended, with most fighting scaled back to the regimental or battalion level. In effect, two divisions of the Indian Army, numbering 20,000, plus several thousand from the Indian Paramilitary Forces and the air force deployed in the conflict zone. The total number of Indian soldiers involved in the military operation on the Kargil-Drass sector numbered close to 30,000. The number of infiltrators, including those providing logistical backup, has been put at approximately 5000 at the height of the conflict.That figure includes troops from Pakistan-administered Kashmir providing additional artillery support.
Protection of National Highway No. 1A
Kashmir has mountainous terrain at high altitudes; even the best roads, such as National Highway No. 1 (NH 1) from Leh to Srinagar, have only two lanes. The rough terrain and narrow roads slowed traffic, and the high altitude, affecting the ability of aircraft to carry loads, made control of NH 1A (the actual stretch of the highway under Pakistani fire) a priority for India. From their observation posts, the Pakistani forces had a clear line of sight to lay down indirect artillery fire on NH 1A, inflicting heavy casualties on the Indians.That posed a serious problem for the Indian Army as the highway served as its main logistical and supply route. The Pakistani shelling of the arterial road posed the threat of Leh being cut off, though an alternative (and longer) road to Leh existed via Himachal Pradesh.
The infiltrators, apart from being equipped with small arms and grenade launchers, also had mortars, artillery and anti-aircraft guns. Many posts had been heavily mined, with India later recovering nearly 9,000 anti-personnel mines according to ICBL. Unmanned aerial vehicles and AN/TPQ-36 Firefinder radars supplied by the US performed Pakistan's reconnaissance. The initial Indian attacks aimed at controlling the hills overlooking NH 1A, with high priority being given to the stretches of the highway near the town of Kargil. The majority of posts along the Line of Control stood adjacent to the highway, and therefore the recapture of nearly every infiltrated post increased both the territorial gains and the security of the highway. The protection of that route and the recapture of the forward posts constituted ongoing objectives throughout the war. Though India had cleared most of the posts in the vicinity of the highway by mid-June, some parts of the highway near Drass witnessed sporadic shelling until the end of the war.
Indian territory recovery
Once India regained control of the hills overlooking NH 1A, the Indian Army turned to driving the invading force back across the Line of Control, but refrained from pursuing forces further into the Pakistani-controlled portion of Kashmir. The Battle of Tololing, among other assaults, slowly tilted the combat in India's favor. Some of the posts put up a stiff resistance, including Tiger Hill (Point 5140) that fell only later in the war. A few of the assaults occurred atop hitherto unheard of peaks—most of them unnamed with only Point numbers to differentiate them—which witnessed fierce hand to hand combat. With the operation fully underway, about 250 artillery guns moved forward to clear the infiltrators in the posts standing in the line of sight. The Bofors field howitzer (infamous in India due to the Bofors scandal) played a vital role, with Indian gunners making maximum use of the terrain that assisted such an attack. Its success elsewhere had been limited due to the lack of space and depth to deploy the Bofors gun. The Indian military introduced aerial attacks in that terrain. The high altitude, which in turn limited bomb loads and the number of airstrips that could be used, limited the extend of the Indian Air Force's Operation Safed Sagar. The IAF lost a MiG-27 strike aircraft attributed to an engine failure as well as a MiG-21 fighter shot down by Pakistan. Pakistan said it shot down both jets after they crossed into its territory[ and one Mi-8 helicopter to Stinger SAMs. During attacks the IAF used laser-guided bombs to destroy well-entrenched positions of the Pakistani forces. Estimates place the number of intruders killed by air action alone at nearly 700.
In some vital points, neither artillery nor air power could dislodge the outposts manned by the Pakistan soldiers, positioned out of visible range. The Indian Army mounted some slow, direct frontal ground assaults that took a heavy toll given the steep ascent that had to be made on peaks as high as 18,000 feet (5,500 m). Since any daylight attack would be suicidal, all the advances had to be made under the cover of darkness, escalating the risk of freezing. Accounting for the wind chill factor, the temperatures often fell as low as −11 °C to −15 °C (12 °F to 5 °F) near the mountain tops. Based on military tactics, much of the costly frontal assaults by the Indians could have been avoided if the Indian Military had chosen to blockade the supply route of the opposing force, virtually creating a siege. Such a move would have involved the Indian troops crossing the LoC as well as initiating aerial attacks on Pakistan soil, a manoeuvre India rejected out of concern of expanding the theatre of war and reducing international support for its cause.
Meanwhile, the Indian Navy also readied itself for an attempted blockade of Pakistani ports (primarily Karachi port)to cut off supply routes. Later, the then-Prime Minister of Pakistan Nawaz Sharif disclosed that Pakistan had just six days of fuel to sustain itself if a full-fledged war had broken out. As Pakistan found itself entwined in a prickly position, the army had covertly planned a nuclear strike on India, the news alarming U.S. President Bill Clinton, resulting in a stern warning to Nawaz Sharif. Two months into the conflict, Indian troops had slowly retaken most of the ridges they had lost;according to official count, an estimated 75–80 percent of the intruded area and nearly all high ground had come under Indian control.
Following the Washington accord on July 4, where Sharif agreed to withdraw the Pakistan-backed troops, most of the fighting came to a gradual halt. In spite of that, some of the militants still holed up refused to retreat, and the United Jihad Council (an umbrella for all extremist groups) rejected Pakistan's plan for a climb-down, instead deciding to fight on. Following that, the Indian army launched its final attacks in the last week of July; as soon as the last of these Jihadists in the Drass subsector had been cleared, the fighting ceased on July 26. The day has since been marked as Kargil Vijay Diwas (Kargil Victory Day) in India. By the end of the war, India had resumed control of all territory south and east of the Line of Control, as established in July 1972 as per the Shimla Accord.
World opinion
Other countries criticized Pakistan for allowing its paramilitary forces and insurgents to cross the Line of Control. Pakistan's primary diplomatic response, one of plausible deniability linking the incursion to what it officially termed as "Kashmiri freedom fighters," proved, in the end, unsuccessful. Veteran analysts argued that the battle, fought at heights where only seasoned troops could survive, placed the poorly equipped "freedom fighters" in an unwinable situation with neither the ability nor the wherewithal to seize land and defend it. Moreover, while the army had initially denied the involvement of its troops in the intrusion, two soldiers received the Nishan-E-Haider (Pakistan's highest military honor). Another 90 soldiers received gallantry awards, most of them posthumously, confirming Pakistan's role in the episode. India also released taped phone conversations between the Army Chief and a senior Pakistani general with the latter recorded saying: "the scruff of [the militants] necks is in our hands,"although Pakistan dismissed it as a "total fabrication." Concurrently, Pakistan made several contradicting statements, confirming its role in Kargil, when it defended the incursions with the argument that the LOC remained under dispute.[Pakistan also attempted to internationalize the Kashmir issue, by linking the crisis in Kargil to the larger Kashmir conflict but, such a diplomatic stance found few backers on the world stage.
As the Indian counter-attacks picked up momentum, Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif flew to meet U.S. president Bill Clinton on July 4 to obtain support from the United States. Clinton rebuked Sharif, asking him to use his contacts to rein in the militants and withdraw Pakistani soldiers from Indian territory. Clinton would later reveal in his autobiography that "Sharif’s moves were perplexing" since the Indian prime minister had travelled to Lahore to promote bilateral talks aimed at resolving the Kashmir problem and "by crossing the Line of Control, Pakistan had wrecked the [bilateral] talks."On the other hand, he applauded Indian restraint for stopping short of the LoC and escalating the conflict into an all-out war. The other G8 nations, too, supported India and condemned the Pakistani violation of the LoC at the Cologne summit. The European Union opposed the violation of the LoC. China, a long-time ally of Pakistan, refused to intervene in Pakistan's favor, insisting on a pullout of forces to the LoC and settling border issues peacefully. Other organizations like the ASEAN Regional Forum too supported India's stand on the inviolability of the LOC.Faced with growing international pressure, Sharif managed to pull back the remaining soldiers from Indian territory. The joint statement issued by Clinton and Sharif conveyed the need to respect the Line of Control and resume bilateral talks as the best forum to resolve all disputes.
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