Pakistan Tests Medium Range Missile

04/10/2002| IslamWeb

With border tensions between South Asia's nuclear neighbors running high, Pakistan test fired a new surface-to-surface missile Friday, the official media Uneasy neighbor India was given prior warning of the test, according to the state-owned Associated Press of Pakistan announced. . The missile, believed to have a range of 380 miles, is one in a series of medium-range missiles in Pakistan's arsenal, all capable of carrying conventional and nuclear warheads.

Both India and Pakistan conducted underground nuclear tests in 1998, and both say they have introduced nuclear weapons into their arsenals, but neither has specified the type or number.

"This is a sort of routine test," said army spokesman Brig. Salat Raza.

Pakistan last conducted a missile test in May, when it fired a surface-to-surface ballistic missile, called the Ghauri missile, also capable of carrying both a conventional and nuclear warhead.

At the time Pakistan and neighboring India were on a war footing and the United States, among other nations, was scrambling to avert an all-out fighting between the two countries.

Pakistan and India have gone to war three times in the last 55 years.

World leaders have cautioned the two countries about forging ahead with their missile programs because it takes only four minutes for a missile to hit the other country.

Both Pakistan and India have said they want peace, but more then one million soldiers are deployed along their disputed Kashmir border, the flashpoint of two previous wars.

Both India and Pakistan claim the Himalayan region in its entirety. India accuses Pakistan of arming and training militants who are demanding an independent Kashmir or a Kashmir aligned to Pakistan.

Pakistan denies the charges, but says it sympathizes with the Kashmiris and demands the implementation of a United Nations resolution calling for a vote by Kashmiris to decide their future.

PHOTO CAPTION

Pakistan's surface-to-surface missile takes off from an undisclosed place for a predestined target in this May file photo. REUTERS/Pakistan Military Handout