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 Image Courtesy: Nation.com.Pk The New York Times has come out with a new set of allegations against Pakistan citing un named intelligence sources from the US. According to the allegations, Pakistan has extended the range of US provided Harpoon Missiles and hence made them capable to hit ground targets. According to Dallas News:
WASHINGTON – The United States has accused Pakistan of illegally modifying U.S.-made missiles to expand its capability to strike land targets, a potential threat to India, according to senior administration and congressional officials.
The charge, which set off a new outbreak of tensions between the United States and Pakistan, was made in an unpublicized diplomatic protest in late June to Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani and other top Pakistani officials.
The accusation comes at a delicate time: The administration is asking Congress to approve $7.5 billion in aid to Pakistan over the next five years, and Washington is pressing the Pakistani military to focus its attentions on fighting the Taliban, rather than expanding its nuclear and conventional forces aimed at India.
U.S. officials say that the weapon in the latest dispute is a conventional one – based on the Harpoon anti-ship missiles that were sold to Pakistan by the Reagan administration as a defensive weapon in the Cold War – but a broader concern is the speed with which Pakistan is further developing both conventional and nuclear weapons.
“There’s a concerted effort to get these guys to slow down,” one senior administration official said.
At issue is the detection by U.S. intelligence agencies of a suspicious missile test on April 23 – a test never announced by the Pakistanis – that appeared to give the country a new offensive weapon.
U.S. military and intelligence officials suspect that Pakistan has modified the Harpoon missiles, a move that would be a violation of the Arms Control Export Act. Pakistan has denied the charge, saying it developed the missile itself.
The United States has also accused Pakistan of modifying U.S.-made P-3C aircraft for land-attack missions, which would be another violation of U.S. law.
About Harpoon Missile:
The Harpoon is an all-weather, over-the-horizon, anti-ship missile system, developed and manufactured by McDonnell Douglas (now Boeing Integrated Defense Systems). In 2004, Boeing delivered the 7,000th Harpoon unit since the weapon’s introduction in 1977. The missile system has also been further developed into a land-strike weapon, the Standoff Land Attack Missile (SLAM). Click below link to read more details about the missile from their official site
Harpoon Block II (PDF File)
However, Pakistan has denied all these allegations and termed them a conspiracy by its enemies to stall the US Senate plan of giving extensive aid to Pakistan. Pakistan Ambassador to US has termed them illogical accusations that don’t make any sense. According to APP:
Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United States has debunked as “incorrect” accusations in a New York Times story that Islamabad had illegally modified American-made missiles to expand its capability to strike land target.“The accusations are incorrect and based on wrong intelligence,” Ambassador Husain Haqqani said while commenting on the Times’ dispatch, which also claimed that the altered missiles posed a potential threat to India.
Citing senior administration and Congressional officials, the newspaper said the U.S. charge came in late June through an unpublicized diplomatic protest to Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and other top Pakistani officials.
“We will make sure that the US understands the correct picture and we will fight back periodic efforts to falsely blame Pakistan which remains a critical US ally in fighting terrorism,” Ambassador Haqqani said, urging the American media to help Pakistan in its vitally important anti-terrorism efforts and desist from making false accusations.
“Instead of false accusations, US media should help Pakistan secure the help it needs to fight our common enemy viz; terrorism,” he added.
Not only this, the international experts also thinks that the missile tested by Pakistan is far more sophisticated then the Harpoon Missile and hence can not be an upgraded version of US Harpoon Missile. According to Times:
Robert Hewson, editor of Jane’s Air-Launched Weapons, a yearbook and Web-based data service, said the Harpoon missile did not have the necessary range for a land-attack missile, which would lend credibility to Pakistani claims that they are developing their own new missile. Moreover, he said, Pakistan already has more modern land-attack missiles that it developed itself or acquired from China.
“They’re beyond the need to reverse-engineer old U.S. kit,” Hewson said in a telephone interview with the Times. “They’re more sophisticated than that.”
Hewson said the ship-to-shore missile that Pakistan was testing was part of a concerted effort to develop an array of conventional missiles that could be fired from the air, land or sea to address India’s much more formidable conventional missile arsenal.
What we really need to see is as to who are the un named intelligence sources of New York Times that provide it with anti Pakistan stories which NYT is always read to publish. I think the government of Pakistan should pursue the paper this time and launch a case against it in US and International courts. The anti-Pakistan elements in the media group should be unmasked.
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Pakistan already have much better missiles that can hit targets further than Harpoon and they dont have to adjust them to hit land targets (Ghauri, Shaheen, Hatf etc), what a load of Bullocks by NYT… The lobbying to keep Pakistan in the check all the time won’t work…
Yups! The report is so pathetic that Janes Defence experts themselves contradicted it and termed it baseless. It is their usual method to exert pressure on Pakistan. Read Shireen Mazari article at Pro-Pakistan titled Silencing American Critics in Pakistan. She has exposed the Americans working in Pakistan against the interest of Pakistani people.
NY Times itself reports that:
Some experts are also skeptical of the American claims. Robert Hewson, editor of Jane’s Air-Launched Weapons, a yearbook and Web-based data service, said the Harpoon missile did not have the necessary range for a land-attack missile, which would lend credibility to Pakistani claims that they are developing their own new missile. Moreover, he said, Pakistan already has more modern land-attack missiles that it developed itself or acquired from China.
“They’re beyond the need to reverse-engineer old U.S. kit,” Mr. Hewson said in a telephone interview. “They’re more sophisticated than that.” Mr. Hewson said the ship-to-shore missile that Pakistan was testing was part of a concerted effort to develop an array of conventional missiles that could be fired from the air, land or sea to address India’s much more formidable conventional missile arsenal.
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