Posted on 05/23/2002 12:23:41 AM PDT by grimalkin
London,Thursday, May 23, 2002: India's Strategic Nuclear Command is expected to be in place by next month, four years after the country conducted underground tests and declared itself a nuclear-state.
The Strategic Nuclear command (SNC) which will be commanded by the Indian Air Force (IAF) and based at Thiruvananthapuram, currently the headquarters of the IAF Southern Air Command, will function under the aegis of the newly created Integrated Defence Staff (IDS), the Jane's Defence Weekly has said quoting official sources.
A large proportion of the SNC's air and sea-based assets will eventually be based on the Andaman and Nicobar island in the Bay of Bengal, headquarters of India's first tri-service command established last October," the sources said.
The IAF, convinced of its pre-eminent strike capability, had wanted sole control of India's nuclear assets and was clearly "disconcerted" when the government announced the raising of the army's second strategic rocket regiment last year to operate the indigenously produced Agni II Intermediate-range ballistic missile that entered series production June last year, the weekly claimed.
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