ISLAMABAD, June 23: Israel has provided help to India against Pakistan and recently its spy satellites assisted India in tracing movements of the Pakistani forces on the borders.

According to a detailed article published in The Arab News on Sunday, written by Tim Kennedy, Israel and India have been closely cooperating for several years in military defence, particularly in technological areas associated with conventional weapons and unmanned aircraft.

The article reads that India is now exploiting some of the defence technology and know-how acquired through this relationship in its deepening conflict with Pakistan.

The paper, quoting some sources, says India also intends to use its access to images from the sophisticated Israeli spy satellites to ensure that it will prevail in any hostilities with its regional rival.

The paper states that the thriving Indo-Israeli defence-research ties has become particularly sensitive in the light of the emergence of India and Pakistan as unstable nuclear powers.

Five years ago, when Pakistan prepared for its initial nuclear test, Islamabad feared that its test site would come under aerial attack by the Indian and Israeli aircraft flying out of Indian airfields.

The Arab News states that the US Department of State eventually confirmed that the two countries were indeed preparing a preemptive strike against the Pakistanis.

The paper says the Egyptian and Pakistani newspapers cited the Arab intelligence sources saying that while India conducted five atomic tests in May 1998, one or more of the detonated weapons were Israeli.

The sources explained that New Delhi has tested the nuclear bombs as a favour to its Israeli partners.

At India’s insistence, little has been publicized about the military alliance between these two most technologically-advanced countries in the vast region stretching from the Mediterranean to the Straits of Malacca.

The paper reports that New Delhi believes secrecy is necessary because with the world’s second-largest Muslim population and with over one million expatriate workers in the Arab world, word of the relationship could create political instability both internally and externally.

With Iran and the Gulf as its main suppliers of oil, India also does not want to risk alienating its primary sources of energy, the paper observes.

The political leadership of the nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is largely responsible for strengthening the Indo-Israeli ties.

The pro-Hindu BJP and its predecessor, the Jana Sangh, never hid their pro-Israel bias and anti-Arab prejudice, the paper said.

India shares many strategic interests with Israel.

An increasing number of influential Indians are arguing that their country’s foreign policy should be guided by national interest, not by sentiment or sympathy for the Palestinian cause.

The Arab News in the article states that Israel and India have set up joint projects in several defence-research areas, including guidance technology, special materials and electronic warfare.

The paper quoted India Today, an English-language daily published in Bombay, which reports that cooperation in recent years has been particularly strong in the intelligence technology, with Israeli signals-gathering equipment being fitted onto Indian Boeing 707 aircraft.

It says there has also been covert Indo-Israeli cooperation in nuclear and missile technology for at least two decades.

India’s leading defence scientist, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, a Muslim who has become a national hero after the recent series of nuclear tests, visited Israel in 1996 and 1997. Similarly, several key Israeli scientists visited India.

While India has a more advanced space and missile programme than Israel, the latter is far ahead of India in conventional armaments and unmanned air vehicles.—APP