Exclusive: China War-Gamed Arunachal With Drones, Jets After Tawang Clash
NDTV
The images from Maxar come as the Indian Air Force maintains combat air patrols over the skies of Arunachal Pradesh because of increased Chinese air activity.
High-resolution satellite imagery accessed by NDTV within days of the clashes in Tawang, Arunachal Pradesh, indicates that Beijing has positioned large numbers of drones and fighter aircraft at major Tibetan airbases, which are ranged against India's northeast.
The images from Maxar come as the Indian Air Force maintains combat air patrols over the skies of Arunachal Pradesh because of increased Chinese air activity. In the last few weeks, the Air Force has also scrambled its fighter jets on at least two occasions after detecting Chinese aircraft that threatened to breach Indian airspace over Arunachal.
An image from China's Bangda Airbase, which lies just 150 km northeast of the Arunachal Pradesh boundary, shows the presence of a state-of-the-art WZ-7 'Soaring Dragon' drone. Officially unveiled for the first time in 2021, the Soaring Dragon, which can fly non-stop for upto 10 hours, is designed for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions and may be able to transmit data to enable cruise missiles to strike targets on the ground.
India operates no drone of this class.
