A newly emerged satellite image indicates potential restoration work at Pakistan’s Bholari airbase, one of the major targets during India’s Operation Sindoor last month. The image reveals a tarpaulin over a hangar at the location assumed to have been hit during the attack pointing towards repair work.
The Bholari airbase in Sindh province, near Karachi, also reportedly took a direct hit, as previously confirmed by Indian defense sources and satellite images from Maxar Technologies published in May.
Geo-intelligence expert Damien Symon posted high-resolution photographs taken by The Intel Lab. The hangar was seen visibly damaged in the photograph from May 12, while the June 1 photo saw the same facility under tarpaulin, indicating repair work in progress.
The strategic significance of the site lends gravity to the construction. Pakistan’s newest airbase, Bholari, was commissioned in December 2017 and played host to the joint ‘Shaheen IX’ exercise with China in 2020. India had, in the overnight missile strike of May 9–10, destroyed an AWACS aircraft, a former Pakistani Air Force Chief earlier revealed.
Recent imagery from Bholari Airbase, Pakistan indicates that the hangar damaged in the Indian airstrike is now covered with tarpaulin possibly signaling repair activity/restoration is now underway pic.twitter.com/BPbbfgTkNJ
— Damien Symon (@detresfa_) June 2, 2025
That loss of AWACS was a major blow to the aerial surveillance capabilities of Pakistan. Apart from Bholari, India had hit ten other Pakistani military facilities including Nur Khan, Rafiqui, Murid, Sialkot, Sargodha, Jacobabad, and Skardu among them making the retaliatory strike one of unprecedented scale.
Satellite pictures of Shahbaz airbase in Jacobabad and the Bholari facility on May 10 showed the magnitude of the damage, contrary to Islamabad’s boasts of ‘minimum damage’.
Fresh imagery from Nur Khan airbase, rated one of Pakistan’s most strategic military bases also showed devastating damage. The base shelters vital platforms like the Saab Erieye airborne early warning systems, IL-78 refuelling aircraft, and C-130 transport planes, which are integral to Pakistan’s drone operations and logistics support.
The Indian government said the retaliatory attacks after the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack were a historic precedent being for the first time an airbase of a nuclear power nation has been successfully targeted.
