Pakistan

Ababeel to buttress Pakistan deterrence

Experts believe new missile will bring peace, stability in the region

APP January 26, 2017

Ababeel. PHOTO: FILE

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Ababeel, using the Multi Independent Re-entry Vehicle (MIRV) technology, will restore minimal measures for deterrence equation of the country, defence experts and analysts said on Wednesday.

The system carrying more than one warhead, which can destroy various locations within a 2,200 kilometre radius, was successfully tested on Tuesday.

Defence expert and analyst Lt Gen (R) Shoaib Amjad said the system was developed to defeat Indian Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) shield whereby giving Pakistan the chance to maintain minimum level of deterrence to counter hegemonic designs of the adversary.

Ababeel to ‘neutralise India’s defence shield’

He said the restoration of deterrence will ensure stability and peace in the region. He said the BMD had increased Indian sense of security and tendency to pre-empt, adding that there is a pattern that ‘India acts and Pakistan reacts.’

The facts reveal that if flight test numbers and types of tests are compared - India has been testing around three times more than Pakistan and has a bigger array in its inventory. This is evident, he said, that Islamabad takes minimal, qualitative and highly restrained measures to restore peace, stability and deterrence measures.

President Strategic Vision Institute Professor Dr Zafar Iqbal Cheema while divulging details about the minimum deterrence said that Ababeel, being capable of carrying multiple warheads simultaneously, is visibly harder to be encountered by the Indian BMD.

Pakistan conducts first flight test of surface-to-surface Ababeel missile

He said that India has always tried to take the edge over Pakistan’s technologies and in reaction to that Pakistan tests devices to encounter them. He said that Pakistan’s missiles are strictly India specific, but if the Indian missile inventory is looked into, it has a 5,000 km range missiles questioning about the targets around the globe.

Some reports hold that they have over 3,500 missiles of various types in their inventory.

Another defence analyst Major Gen (R) Ejaz Awan said that Ababeel with its specific abilities to easily deceive the radar system simultaneously can target multiple targets with various warheads and different payloads.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 26^th, 2017.

COMMENTS (2)

Haji Atiya | 7 years ago | Reply @Shabbir Cheema: Who needs college when one can just google: "How to build a missile to overcome Indian missile defense systems ?" Its all there waiting to be read and acted upon !

Vineeth | 7 years ago | Reply The smaller core diameter of the Shaheen wasn't suitable to make a MIRV missile, unlike the Agni-III and Agni-V which were designed from the ground up with large core diameters to accommodate multiple warheads. But Shaheen is all Pakistan had, so they had to figure out a way to put multiple warheads on it. That's why they had to put a bulbous payload fairing for the missile, which would come at great cost to the missile's performance and stability. And any MIRV that Pakistan puts on it will have to be highly miniaturized. Despite appearances, Pakistan is still far away from having a credible MIRVed missile.

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