Chinese Spy Sub off Socotra
Snagged by the Indians: ToI:
NEW DELHI: Keeping as it does a watchful eye on the rapidly-modernising Chinese Navy, the Indian Navy has detected, tracked and photographed three spanking new Chinese submarines in the Mediterranean region.
This is the second such instance of remarkable long-range maritime snooping by the Navy this year. Its TU-142M and IL-38 maritime surveillance aircraft had “spooked” a new Chinese destroyer off Yemen’s Socotra Island, almost 2,300-km away from the Indian mainland, as was reported by TOI in February.
This time, four of its warships — destroyer INS Mysore, guided missile frigates INS Brahmaputra and INS Betwa and tanker INS Aditya — came across the three submarines being transported on board two carrier “mother” ships transversing through the Suez Canal and Red Sea earlier this month.
“These three Kilo-class submarines, armed with the latest Klub-S cruise missiles, are the last batch of the eight contracted by China from Russia in a $2-billion deal in 2002,” said a top source.
