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Israeli Navy to Set Foot in the Indian Ocean, Courtesy India
By
IOL South Asia Correspondent
NEW
DELHI, June 18 (IslamOnline) - Courtesy India, Israel is now building
a naval presence in the Indian Ocean. A leading Indian newspaper,
Hindustan Times, said Tuesday, June 18, 2002, in a report datelined
Jerusalem and filed by India Abroad News Service, that Israel is
developing a second strike naval capability far from its territorial
borders, thanks to the strengthening strategic ties with India.
The
paper quoted Professor Efrayim Inbar of Bar Ilan University's
Begin-Sadat Centre for Strategic Studies, a noted strategic expert,
who was commenting on an American media report that Israel had three
nuclear-armed submarines for which a long-range cruise missile had
been tested in the Indian Ocean off Sri Lanka two years ago under U.S.
supervision.
Prof
Inbar said: "Israel's close ties with India enable it to broaden
its naval activities far from the Israeli coastline and secure a
permanent presence that is hard to keep under surveillance."
Israeli
Reserve Colonel Gidi Netzer, specialist on the India-Pakistan
conflict, said: "Indian defense officials, however, certainly
would have had foreknowledge of the Israeli cruise missile test, which
would have been carried out with full Indian coordination because of
its regional and strategic sensitivities."
Israel
is studiously ambiguous about its purported nuclear capabilities and
Israeli defense sources neither confirmed nor denied the nuclear
claims, the newspaper said.
Besides
posing a far greater threat to Arab security, the new development
confirms Israel's long-term goals of playing a dominant role in Asia.
Sharon, then Israel's defense minister, said during the Israeli
invasion of Lebanon in 1982 that the Jewish State's strategic
interests extended from Congo to Pakistan.
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