The US objection was conveyed during last month's visit to Israel by Defence Secretary William Cohen, and as far as India was concerned, it centered immediately around Tel Aviv's plans to sell Popeye II air-to-surface missiles to New Delhi.

The Popeye II, said to be one of the Israeli defence establishments best products, is an electro-optical guided missile with a 150 km range. When it gets to about 20 km from the target, its electro-optical eye searches for and then locks on to the target. It has a 400-kg warhead and can be used against both reinforced targets or as a fragmentation bomb against anti-aircraft sites.

Washington is worried that Tel Aviv may transfer other sophisticated items like the Arrow interceptor technologies which was developed jointly by US and Israel with fundingfrom the Pentagon.

The US itself has in the past routinely transferred or sold massive quantities of arms, planes, and missiles to adversaries like Israel and Saudi Arabia, and also other hotspots like Taiwan, Pakistan, not to speak of regimes in Indonesia and Philippines.

The US concern, which was first reported in the Jerusalem Post last month, was confirmed State Department spokesman James Rubin who said Israeli arms supply was an active subject of US dialogue with Tel Aviv.

According to authoritative defence sources, Israeli export authorities are negotiating coventional arms deals with New Delhi, estimated at about $150-200 million per year for the next five years, amid signs of a "burgeoning arms relationship."

The new procurement items under discussion included up to eight units of the Searcher 2 unmanned aerial vehicle, battlefield radar systems and artillery systems, avionics and other upgrades for India's fleet of MI-35 helicopters; T-72 and Arjun tanks; and Su-30, MiG-27, El/M-2080radar systems and Jaguar fighter jets developed by Israel Aircraft Industries Elta Electronics Ltd.

Defense News, a widely respected US publication, said in a recent issue that Israeli government and industry officials were responding favourably to Indian requests to speed up delivery of more than $ 150 million worth of previously ordered weapons, ammunition, surveillance systems and military communications gear.

Negotiations on expedited Israeli arms deliveries and potential future procurements were "elevated to the highest levels" during a visit to Tel Aviv recently by Brajesh Mishra, principal secretary to Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and national security advisor to the government, and defence secretary T Ramachandran Prasad.

The rush to free up items caught in the procurement pipeline in part were due to New Delhi's desire to deploy much of the equipment in the Kargil sector of Jammu and Kashmir before the onset of winter, Defense News said.

Israel has a thriving defenceindustry. Lately, the Israeli's have been aggressively marketing their wares, and with other countries like South Africa, has emerged as a challenger to the hegemony of traditional merchants of war like the US, Russia and France.

India too has been keen on widening its source of arms procurement that was once heavily reliant on the former Soviet Union.

Only some weeks back, 11 Israeli defense firms traveled to New Delhi to display their wares at a defense trade exhibition. Top Israeli companies such as Elbit, Israel Aircraft Industries, TAAS -- Israel Industries, Rafael, and Elisra, participated.

New Delhi has also been looking at South Africa as a possible source for some arms.