Ex-CIA officer claims Indira Gandhi rejected India-Israel strike on Pakistan’s nuclear facility
In a revelation that brings fresh intrigue to South Asia’s nuclear history, former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) counter-proliferation officer Richard Barlow has claimed that a secret joint strike plan between India and Israel to hit Pakistan’s Kahuta nuclear facility was proposed in the early 1980s — and says that then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi withdrew her approval for it.
According to Barlow, intelligence circles at the time entertained the idea of pre-emptively targeting Pakistan’s enrichment plant at Kahuta because Pakistan’s nuclear weapons ambitions were regarded as a serious threat. Barlow said of the plan: “It’s a shame that Indira didn’t approve it. It would have solved a lot of problems.”
The proposed operation reportedly envisaged Israeli F-16 and F-15 jets operating out of Indian airbases such as Jamnagar and Udhampur, with Indian Jaguar aircraft providing support and in-air refuelling. The target was to destroy the Kahuta facility before it matured into a fully operational weapons-grade site.
Barlow adds that while an initial go-ahead may have been given, Indira Gandhi later backed out, citing major geopolitical risks — notably potential full-scale war with Pakistan and backlash from the United States, which at that time was deep into its covert war efforts in Afghanistan and keen not to jeopardise Pakistani cooperation.
As a former US intelligence officer with experience in nuclear proliferation issues, Barlow said he never worked directly on the strike plan. He described hearing of it second-hand while he was out of government between 1982 and 1985.
The revelation reignites questions about critical decision-points in the India-Pakistan nuclear competition: Could India have changed the course of South Asia’s nuclear arms race if the strike had gone ahead? Conversely, analysts caution that such a mission would have entailed enormous risks, including escalation into war and global diplomatic fallout from the United States and its allies.
