PAKISTAN: Pakistan test-fired an intermediate-range nuclear-capable ballistic missile yesterday which it claims can hit targets deep inside neighbouring India.
"The two-stage Shaheen II Missile System, which has been indigenously developed by Pakistani scientists and engineers, can carry all types of warheads up to 2,000km," Pakistan's military said.
"By the grace of Allah, all the planned technical parameters were successfully validated."
The test comes shortly after Pakistan's most revered scientist, Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan, was pardoned by President Pervez Musharraf for selling sensitive nuclear equipment and blueprints to Iraq, Libya and North Korea to make atomic bombs.
Security sources said testing the missile was an attempt by Pakistan to convince the country that it was not abandoning its nuclear deterrence under pressure from the US, which along with the International Atomic Energy Commission was behind Dr Khan's alarming disclosures.
There was no immediate confirmation of the missile's capabilities, and India, which has a comparable missile development programme. offered no immediate response to the tests.
Pakistan says the new missile exceeds the 1,500km reach of the Ghauri, previously its longest-range missile, which military experts claim was developed with North Korean help in exchange for providing Pyongyang with fissile material to build nuclear bombs.
Pakistan claims its missile programme is a response to that of nuclear-armed India, with which it has fought three wars and an 11-week military engagement since independence in 1947.
Senior Indian defence officials have repeatedly said that they are poised to test a similar intermediate range ballistic missile to a range about 3,000km, some 600km more than the reach of its existing arsenal of missiles.
Yesterday's missile tests also come four days after India signed a $1 billion deal for three Israeli Phalcon airborne early-warning radar systems in an agreement that analysts say threatens to trigger an arms race in the region between India and Pakistan.
Once the Indian Air Force inducts the radar systems mounted on Russian transport aircraft into service over the next four years, India will be the only country in the region capable of tracking over 60 targets simultaneously at a distance of more than 700km, exponentially enhancing its capabilities.
This is bound to encourage Pakistan to seek some kind of parity, analysts said.
"Our strategic force goals are guided by the concept of minimum credible deterrence, and that's why we have to test these missiles from time to time," Pakistan's foreign ministry spokesman, Mr Masood Khan, said.
He said the aim of the test would be to ensure the reach of the missile was sufficient to deter aggression and "prevent military coercion", in a direct reference to India.
But the missile test has, for the moment, not chilled the thaw in relations that has led to an opening of air, bus and rail links and an agreement to hold peace talks in summer after India's general elections that will include the disputed Kashmir province that is claimed by both.
