Vijay Mohan

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, May 8

The details of another Pakistani airbase, believed to be the storage point for air deliverable nuclear weapons, are now available online. A series of pictures reveal the construction of special underground vaults at Masroor airbase, west of Karachi, which were completed earlier this year.An open source satellite image of March 2016 shows a hardened aircraft shelter adjacent to a taxi track, similar to that seen on airbases. A close examination of this image and comparison with earlier imagery of the same site reveals a “well designed” underground vault system and weapon storage bunkers interconnected with each other, according to a post by an expert in imagery interpretation.Overhead images from February and April 2015 give a glimpse of the underground vault, believed to have been constructed with foreign assistance. The structure, according to experts, is on the lines of the western Weapons Storage and Security System that includes electronic controls and vaults built into the floors of aircraft shelters for safe storage of special weapons. These are present on many American and NATO military airbases.Masroor is Pakistan’s largest airbase that houses its 32 Tactical Attack Wing comprising four squadrons. It lies to the west of the port city and is about 15 km away from the Pakistan Navy’s Mehran naval air station that had witnessed a devastating terror attack in May 2011.The vault, experts said, enables Pakistan to have nuclear weapons and the required aircraft at operational readiness at all times. Greater secrecy can be maintained since it would not require any significant additional movement of manpower and vehicles, which can be detected. It also ensures survivability of nuclear weapons in case of any first strike.