Pak altered our missiles to target India: US

The accusation comes at a particularly delicate time,when the administration is asking Congress to approve $7.5 billion in aid to Pakistan over the next five years,and when Washington is pressing a reluctant Pakistani military to focus its attentions on fighting the Taliban,rather than expanding its nuclear and conventional forces aimed at India. Officials have briefed Congress on the protest to Pakistan.

While American officials say that the weapon in the latest dispute is a conventional one — based on the Harpoon antiship missiles that were sold to Pakistan by the Reagan administration as a defensive weapon in the cold war — the subtext of the argument is growing concern about the speed with which Pakistan is developing new generations of both conventional and nuclear weapons.

“There’s a concerted effort to get these guys to slow down,” one senior administration official said. “Their energies are misdirected.”

At issue is the detection by American intelligence agencies of a suspicious missile test on April 23 — a test never announced by the Pakistanis — that appeared to give the country a new offensive weapon.

American military and intelligence officials say they suspect that Pakistan has modified the Harpoon antiship missiles that the US sold the country in the 1980s,a move that would be a violation of the Arms Control Export Act. Pakistan has denied the charge,saying it developed the missile itself. The US has also accused Pakistan of modifying American-made P-3C aircraft for land-attack missions,another violation of US law that the Obama administration has protested.

The missiles would be a significant new entry into Pakistan’s arsenal against India. They would enable Pakistan’s small navy to strike targets on land,complementing the sizable land-based missile arsenal that Pakistan has developed.