Pakistan conducts successful missile tests

By Catholic Online (NEWS CONSORTIUM)
4/25/2012
Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)

Missiles capable of delivering both nuclear and conventional warheads

The southeast nation Pakistan has successfully conducted a test of an intermediate range ballistic missile. Pakistan's military officials say that the Hatf-IV Shaheen-1A missile is capable of carrying both nuclear and conventional warheads. The missile test was aimed at a target in the Indian Ocean. The new design implemented "improvements in range and technical parameters," according to the Inter-Services Public Relations, or the ISPR said.

India and Pakistan have both routinely carried out missile tests since they demonstrated nuclear weapons capability in 1998.

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LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - Previous versions of the missile are believed to have an approximate range of about 750 kilometers. Pakistan's longest range successfully tested ballistic missile, the Shaheen 2, has a range of 2,000 kilometers.

Director-general of the Pakistan army's Strategic Plans Division General Khalid Kidwai witnessed the test. "The improved version of Shaheen 1A will further consolidate and strengthen Pakistan's deterrence abilities," according to the ISPR statement.

India, Pakistan's neighbor and regional rival, announced that it had successfully launched its first intercontinental ballistic missile, with a range of 5,000 kilometers earlier this month.

India and Pakistan have fought three full-scale wars since they achieved independence from the British Empire in 1947. Both conduct missile tests regularly and inform each other in advance.

The tests come at an interesting time in India and Pakistan's often tense relationship. Longtime bitter rivals, the relations between the two countries have begun to thaw.

"Over the past few months ... this very tense relationship between India and Pakistan has started to thaw a little bit," Al Jazeera correspondent Imtiaz Tyab said, reporting from Islamabad.

"You have Pakistan offering India 'Most Favored Nation' [trading partner] status.

"As a result, India opened a key border post, allowing goods to flow between India and Pakistan, and of course not very long ago you had Pakistan's president, Asif Ali Zardari, travel to New Delhi, where he also met the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh."

Retired major-general in the Indian army, Dipankar Banerjee, notes that "Pakistan had informed India two days earlier" of the test, and that "there should be no disquiet [in the region] on [the matter of these tests] at all.

"As far as India is concerned, and looking at it from Delhi, we are not at all concerned about this development."

India and Pakistan have both routinely carried out missile tests since they demonstrated nuclear weapons capability in 1998.

"This is what has been happening over the past few years," Talat Masood, a Pakistani defense analyst and retired army general says. "The tests by Pakistan and India follow each other to show that their programs are robust."

� 2012, Catholic Online. Distributed by NEWS CONSORTIUM.

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Keywords: India, Pakistan, missile tests, international relations

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