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India has deployed six of its most capable warplanes to the disputed Kashmir region along the Pakistani border, according to a Sept. 17 report citing Air Marshal P.K. Barbora, commander of India’s Western Air Command. The Russian-designed Sukhoi-30MKI “Flanker” jets are being redeployed from Pune in the western Indian state of Maharashtra to the Avantipura air force base near the Kashmiri city of Srinagar. Barbora said the fighter jets would patrol Indian borders extending up to China and fly across Kargil mountain in Kashmir, where India and Pakistan battled in 1999. Barbora also claimed that this would be a “temporary” redeployment. Sources in New Delhi have indicated that deploying the Su-30MKIs is an unprecedented move, as the Indian air force has typically covered Jammu and Kashmir with India’s older, Russian-made MiG-29s.
Given that this announcement comes in the wake of the Sept. 13 New Delhi blasts and in the midst of a growing crisis between Pakistan and the United States, this appears to be a politically-motivated maneuver by the Indian air force to sow fear inside Islamabad.
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