Islamabad: Pakistan conducted a "successful flight test" of its indigenously developed nuclear-capable cruise missile with stealth capabilities on Thursday, the military announced.
"The air-launched Hatf-VIII Ra'ad missile having a range of over 350 km enables Pakistan to achieve strategic stand-off capability on land and at sea," a military statement said.
It noted that the extremely complex cruise missile technology has been developed by only a select group of countries in the world.
"The state of the art Ra'ad cruise missile with stealth capabilities is a low-altitude, terrain-hugging missile with high manoeuvrability, and can deliver nuclear and conventional warheads with pin-point accuracy," the statement said.
The test was also significant in that it marked the effective deployment of the National Command Authority's fully automated Strategic Command and Control Support System (SCCSS).
"It has enabled robust command and control capability of all strategic assets with round-the-clock situational awareness in a digitised network-centric environment to decision makers at National Command Centre (NCC).The system has the added capability of real-time remote monitoring of missile flight path," the statement said.
