Operation Gibraltar was the codename given to the strategy of Pakistan to infiltrate Jammu and Kashmir, a disputed territory between India and Pakistan, and start a rebellion against Indian rule. Launched in August 1965, Pakistan Army's 50th Airborne paratroopers and Pakistan Army's guerrillas, disguised as locals, entered Jammu and Kashmir from Pakistan with the intention of fomenting an insurgency among Kashmiri Muslims. However, the strategy went awry from the outset as it was not well-coordinated and the infiltrators were soon found.
The operation was a significant one as it sparked a large scale military engagement between the two neighbours, the first since the Indo-Pakistani War of 1947. Its success, as envisaged by its Pakistani planners, could have given Pakistan control over a unified Kashmir; something that Pakistan desired to achieve at the earliest opportunity.
Read more about Operation Gibraltar: Background, Execution of Plan, Operation, Reasons For Failure
Famous quotes containing the word operation:
“You may read any quantity of books, and you may almost as ignorant as you were at starting, if you don’t have, at the back of your minds, the change for words in definite images which can only be acquired through the operation of your observing faculties on the phenomena of nature.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)