Hatf (IX): Pakistan conducts successful missile test

NASR specially designed to defeat all known Anti-Tactical Missile Defence Systems.

ISLAMABAD:

Pakistan on Monday conducted a ‘successful’ test fire of the short range to surface missile, Hatf-IX (NASR), military officials said.

According to the Inter-Services Public Relations, the test fire was conducted with successive launches of two missiles from a state-of-the-art multi-tube launcher.

NASR, with a range of 60km and in-flight manoeuvre capability, can carry nuclear warheads of appropriate yield, with high accuracy, it said.

It added that NASR has also been specially designed to defeat all known Anti-Tactical Missile Defence Systems.

The test was witnessed by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, General Khalid Shameem Wynne, the director-general of the Strategic Plans Division, Lieutenant General (retd) Khalid Ahmed Kidwai, the chairman of NESCOM, Muhammad Irfan Burney, and Commander Army Strategic Forces Command Lieutenant General Tariq Nadeem Gilani, senior officers from the armed forces and scientists and engineers of strategic organisations.

President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf congratulated the engineers and other staff over the successful test of the Hatf-IX missile.

Pakistan has tested a wide range of missiles, including the Hatf-IX tactical missile with a range of 60km and the Hatf-IV, in recent months as part of efforts to strengthen its nuclear arsenal to counter India’s conventional superiority.

More recently, it conducted a test of a nuclear-capable medium range ballistic missile, which the military authorities said would help strengthen its ‘deterrence capability and national security’.

The Hatf-V (Ghauri) is a liquid fuel missile that can carry both conventional and nuclear warheads over a distance of 1,300kms.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 12^th, 2013.