5,963 articles
Operation Big Switch
Operation Big Switch was the final large-scale prisoner-of-war exchange after the 1953 Korean War armistice, held at Panmunjom, in which the UN returned 75,823 prisoners and received 12,773, including 3,597 Americans.
Operation Black Forest
Operation Black Forest, a 21-day Indian anti-Naxal offensive (April 21–May 11, 2025) on Karreguttalu Hills, Chhattisgarh–Telangana border, killed CPI (Maoist) chief Nambala Keshav Rao among 31 reported neutralised.
Operation Black Thunder
Operation Black Thunder: two 1986 and 1988 NSG and Punjab Police operations, also called the Gill Plan, that cleared Sikh militants from Amritsar's Golden Temple by siege and snipers with minimal damage, unlike Operation Blue Star.
Operation Blue Star (ਆਪਰੇਸ਼ਨ ਬਲੂ ਸਟਾਰ)
Operation Blue Star (ਆਪਰੇਸ਼ਨ ਬਲੂ ਸਟਾਰ), the June 1984 Indian Army assault ordered by Indira Gandhi on the Golden Temple complex and over a hundred Punjab gurdwaras to remove Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale; official toll 575 dead.
Operation Bodyguard
Operation Bodyguard was the Allied 1944 strategic deception plan shielding the Normandy invasion, built around Operation Fortitude's fake FUSAG army under Patton and double agents, delaying German reinforcements to Calais for up to seven weeks after D-Day.
Operation Boleas
Operation Boleas was a 1998 military intervention in Lesotho by South African and Botswana forces under SADC auspices, launched to restore order after disputed elections.
Operation Brana '94
Operation Brana '94 (Operacija Brana '94) was a June–July 1994 ARBiH 2nd and 3rd Corps offensive against the VRS Vozuća–Ozren salient in Bosnia, ending in a VRS defensive victory.
Operation Carlota
Operation Carlota, or Operación Carlota, was the codename of the Cuban military intervention in Angola, begun in November 1975 to defend the MPLA and lasting until 1991.
Operation Carthage
Operation Carthage, 21 March 1945: RAF Mosquito raid on the Shellhus, the Gestapo headquarters in Copenhagen, requested by the Danish resistance; it destroyed the target and freed 18 prisoners but accidentally bombed the Jeanne d'Arc School, killing 86 children.
Operation Cartwheel
Operation Cartwheel was a major Allied offensive in the South West Pacific during World War II, launched in June 1943 to neutralize the Japanese base of Rabaul.
Operation Cast Thy Bread
Operation Cast Thy Bread (shallah lahmekha) was a secret 1948 Haganah/IDF biological warfare campaign using typhoid bacteria to poison Arab wells, overseen by Ben-Gurion and Yadin, documented by Morris and Kedar.
Operation Cerska '93
Operation Cerska '93 was a 1993 military offensive by the Army of Republika Srpska in eastern Bosnia. It ended the Cerska enclave and reduced the Srebrenica enclave.
Operation Chenla II
Operation Chenla II was a 1971 Cambodian Civil War offensive by the Khmer Republic to reopen Route 6 to Kompong Thom, ending in the destruction of its strike force.
Operation Citadel
Operation Citadel (Unternehmen Zitadelle), German offensive of 5-16 July 1943 against the Kursk salient, opening the Battle of Kursk. Delayed for new Panther and Tiger tanks, launched against forewarned Soviet defenses, halted, then followed by Soviet counteroffensives Kutuzov and Rumyantsev.
Operation Cobra
Operation Cobra, the 25 July–1 August 1944 American breakout offensive near Saint-Lô, Normandy, planned by Omar Bradley; heavy bomber carpet bombing ruptured Panzer Lehr's line despite friendly-fire deaths including Lesley McNair, enabling Patton's Third Army advance to Avranches and the Falaise pocket.
Operation Cocoon
Operation Cocoon was a Tamil Nadu Special Task Force operation of October 2004 that used a decoy ambulance to lure bandit Veerappan from the forest and killed him near Dharmapuri.
Operation Coldstore
Operation Coldstore was a Singapore security operation of 2 February 1963, detaining over 100 left-wing opposition figures without trial and weakening the Barisan Sosialis before merger with Malaysia.
Operation Commando
Operation Commando was a Korean War offensive by United Nations forces, fought from 3 to 12 October 1951, in which Commonwealth troops captured Maryang San and Hill 355.
Operation Commando Hunt
Operation Commando Hunt was a covert US Seventh Air Force and Navy aerial interdiction campaign against the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos from 1968 to 1972.
Operation Compass
Operation Compass was the first British offensive of the Western Desert campaign in World War II, driving the Italian 10th Army out of Egypt and Cyrenaica from December 1940 to February 1941.
Operation Condor
Operation Condor (Plan Cóndor): Southern Cone intelligence network founded in Santiago, November 1975, by six to eight military dictatorships to hunt exiled leftists abroad; 654 documented victims, Teseo death squads, 2016 Buenos Aires guilty verdict.
Operation Containment
Operation Containment refers to several operations: a DEA-led 2002 multinational initiative against Afghan heroin trafficking involving 19 countries, and an October 2025 Rio de Janeiro police operation in which 121 people died, plus other minor uses.
Operation Cottage
Operation Cottage, also known as the Battle of Kiska, was the 1943 Allied invasion of Kiska Island in the Aleutians, where 34,000 troops landed against a Japanese force already secretly evacuated.
Operation Crusader
Operation Crusader (18 November–20 December 1941) was the British Eighth Army's desert offensive under Auchinleck that defeated Rommel's Afrika Korps, lifted the 242-day siege of Tobruk, and forced the Axis back to El Agheila.
Operation Cyclone
Operation Cyclone was a covert CIA program, running from 1979 to 1992, that armed and financed the anti-Soviet Afghan mujahideen through Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence.
Operation Dawn of Freedom
Operation Dawn of Freedom (Fajr al-Hurriyah), launched 30 November 2024 by Turkish-backed Syrian National Army factions, captured Tall Rifaat, Manbij, and northern Aleppo areas from the SDF and Syrian Arab Armed Forces.
Operation Deadlight
Operation Deadlight was the Royal Navy's 1945-46 scuttling of 116 surrendered German U-boats (of 156) in deep water northwest of Ireland, from Loch Ryan and Lisahally, meeting the Potsdam deadline of 15 February 1946.
Operation Deep Freeze
Operation Deep Freeze is the annual U.S. military logistics mission supporting the National Science Foundation's United States Antarctic Program, begun with Task Force 43 in 1955 and continuing today with Air Force, Navy, and Coast Guard resupply of McMurdo and the South Pole.
Operation Defensive Shield
Operation Defensive Shield (Hebrew: מבצע חומת מגן, Mivtsa Homat Magen) was the IDF's large-scale 2002 West Bank offensive during the Second Intifada, launched after the Netanya Park Hotel bombing, targeting six cities including Jenin and Ramallah.
Operation Demetrius
Operation Demetrius, also called internment, was the 9 August 1971 British Army and Stormont operation arresting 342 people without trial in Northern Ireland; it sparked the Ballymurphy deaths, the Hooded Men case, and lasted until December 1975.