First You only have to check the official Pakistan Govt source to realize that no MIRV was tested: Inter Services Public Relations press release 21 / 2017.

The Pakistani Govt claims[1] that their Ballistic missile Ababeel can carry MIRVs. However, during the test firing of the missile it was not carrying any MIRVs.

If indeed it was carrying MIRVs, then what are the multiple targets that these warheads hit during the test? And if it was unable to hit multiple targets then how can anyone claim that this missile can successfully carry MIRVS?Making a claim is easy. Actually doing it, is a bridge too far.

Pakistan Strategy:

Interesting !! Coming from intelligence community I can give an informed opinion on this. Since long, Pakistan has been like that student who envies his classmate’s projects and makes tall claims about how even he is capable of doing the same but never manages to give a practical demonstration of the same.

However, he has learned video and photo editing and when asked to prove his claims, he produces a poorly edited footage ending up embarrassing his parents.

This is what has happened with Pakistan’s recent “missile tests.” Let’s see how.

Firstly when Ababeel was launched, the Pakistan ISPR retweeted the following accompanied by a 35 second video.

Pak successfully conducted first flight test of SSM #ABABEEL, Rg 2200Km. #COAS congrats team and Pak Armed Forces for landmark achievement.

This is a still from the launch video released by the Pakistan ISPR.

Later in a press release ISPR claimed that Ababeel had MIRV capabilities and that it was developed to counter BMD environment and so on.

read now:

So I ran a quick geo-location drill on this video and I managed to locate the place of launch in Winder, Baluchistan, Pakistan.

After this, I browsed through the catalogs of our surveillance system and it was evident that Ababeel was obviously not tested at it’s full range either.

I can also tell you that there was no test of MIRVs conducted during this and credible sources suggest that the terminal efficacy of Ababeel remains untested.

This means that it was more of a “show off” rather than a missile test. Let’s face it, missile tests are expensive to conduct especially for a country like Pakistan, so whenever a missile is tested, it is always tried that maximum parameters are tested in one single launch.

However, here it seems that the only thing they were testing was if the missile could fly or not which is going to sound more absurd when you read the following.

The Pakistani missile Ababeel is closely resembling a Chinese QROLV called Kuaizhou 1A. Don’t believe me ? Have a look at this.

The similarities in design, size&shape of the propulsion control module and the payload somehow hint towards some sort of Chinese assistance. More absurd is the fact that Kuaizhou is not a missile but rather a space rocket designed to lift off payload into Sun Synchronous Orbit(SSO) and Lower Earth Orbit (LEO). This means that Kuaizhou was meant to only fly up and not fall back to Earth which somehow explains why Ababeel’s terminal efficacy was not tested!

Why would anyone in their sound minds launch a missile and not bother to know if it hits the target or not? Add to that the absurdity of claiming MIRV capability!

CONCLUSION:

Compiling all the information available I conclude that Ababeel test of Pakistan was nothing but a photo opportunity for ISPR as a part of propaganda to proclaim the image of “Pakistan equal to India” to it’s citizen. Leave the claims about MIRV, at present it is not even capable of homing into it’s target singularly. The missile if anything is still under development and if Pakistan is really serious about it, it would push further resources towards it’s development and it is far from being “operational” if at all it is even meant to be ever.

Also to be noted is the fact that China already has MIRV capability, if it was really serious about giving Pakistan an MIRV missile, it would have done it already. I doubt Pakistan has funds to afford that though.

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