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India to buy UAVs from Israel
From Girja Shankar Kaura
Tribune News Service

NEW DELHI, Nov 23 — India is all set to purchase unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) from Israel specially to be deployed in the hilly areas along the Line of Control (LoC) with Pakistan and the Line of Actual Control (LAC) with China to check any movements from across the border.

The UAVs, the deal for the purchase of which was signed earlier this year, would be in the Indian armament by early next year. Both the Indian Air Force (IAF) and the Army would be getting their share of UAVs which would be put to use for gathering information along the borders located in the hilly terrain.

Sources in the MoD disclosed that both the IAF and the Army would get adequate numbers of UAVs and deal for the purchase of them had been signed with the Israelis. Called as the Mark-II Searchers the UAVs would serve as important equipment for the armed forces.

The Army had been making a demand for the UAVs for a long time and their acquisition had also been stressed upon by the Kargil Review Committee in its report submitted late last year. The Army had also said that had the UAVs been in their possession, intrusion by Pakistan in Kargil early last year would have been detected much earlier and the country would not have faced the 50-day war.

The committee had said the UAVs were extremely useful and effective in surveillance especially if they have night vision and thermal imaging capabilities. The committee had stressed upon the need to purchase UAVs which could operate at high altitudes, which would also prove effective in the counter-insurgency operations. UAVs for plains were inducted into the Army late last year.

Sources disclosed that the UAVs being purchased from Israel are the variants of those which that country had successfully used in its operations during the Yomkippur War of 1973 and the 1982 Operation Peace for Galilee campaign. The latter was the strike against the Syrian missiles deployed in the Bekaa valley.

The main job of the UAVs would be to keep a watch on the movements from across the border and to supply information regarding developments across the border. Besides getting the real time pictures, the UAVs would also come in handy during war times for carrying payloads.

According to available reports, the Israelis had made the most successful strike of the UAVs during the 1982 campaign against the Syrian missiles. The Israelis had the finger prints of the Syrian surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) months before the actual operation, which they had gathered by using the UAVs to pick the electronic frequencies of the radars and programming them into their anti-radiation missiles.

On the actual day of operation, the UAVs flew over the battle field sending out signals designed to make the Syrian radars operators believe that the Israeli aircraft were attacking.