India, May 8 -- When the Indian Army was handed its target list for Operation Sindoor, it wasn't a random selection of enemy installations chosen for dramatic effect. Each of the seven sites had been studied, mapped, and understood in detail - what it did, who used it, how it fit into the larger machinery of cross-border terrorism. The mandate was precise: find the recruitment pipelines, the training centers, the weapons depots, and the infiltration launchpads that kept Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed, and Hizbul Mujahideen operational - and take them all down at once.

The trail began in Muzaffarabad, the administrative capital of Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir. Here, tucked into the wooded outskirts of the city, sat the Sawai Nal...