Maritime ISR Outposts Taking Shape

As per an agreement inked between Mauritius and India on March 11, 2015, the latter had committed to funding the construction of an airport capable of accommodating twin-engined jetliners as well as LRMR/ASW platforms like the Indian Navy’s P-8I. As of now, construction of the runway is nearing completion, along with an apron capable of housing two P-8Is (on periodic deployments) at a time.

A similar agreement had been inked on June 26, 2018 between Seychelles and India under which a similar facility was to be built at the former’s Assumption Island. However, construction has yet to begin.

Such far-flung facilities are required to keep tabs over the underwater trenches where hostile SSBNs will likely be deployed for launching SLBMs against Indian targets in the western, central and southern hinterlands.

In February 2018 India secured access to the Port of Duqm in Oman for military use and logistical support by/for the Indian Navy. This was one of the key takeaways of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s two-day visit to Oman, where he met the then Sultan of Oman, the late Sayyid Qaboos bin Said Al Said. An annexure to the Memorandum of Understanding on Military Cooperation was then signed between the two countries.

Following this, the services of Duqm Port and its dry-dock have been available for maintenance of Indian Navy warships. In September 2017, the Indian Navy sent a Class 209/Type-1500 SSK to this port along with the Project 15 DDG INS Mumbai, plus two P-8Is to the nearby Duqm Airport.

The MoU on Military Cooperation was signed in 2005 and renewed in 2016. This has provided the general framework to strengthen bilateral military cooperation ties. On the other hand, the MoU on cooperation in maritime security between Coast Guards of the two countries, signed in May 2016, has provided a firm foundation for deepening institutional interactions.

Also, the ongoing UAE-financed airport construction activities at Yemen’s Perim Island in the Bab El Mandeb Strait, and at Socotra Island to the east, have the potential of turning these navigational choke-points into strategic SIGINT stations that can be assessed by the Indian Navy.

Another potential chain of ISR outposts can be created in the Comoros group of islands.

But the most critical cooperation of a trilateral nature (involving the US, India and Oman) has been in the arena of undersea warfare.

This involves the setting up of a US-funded and owned SOSUS network of seabed-based hydrophone arrays that begins from Diego Garcia and stretches northward via Seychelles all the way up to Oman’s Masirah island, and from there to coastal Porbandar in Gujarat, terminating at an onshore forward operating base (FOB)—INS Sardar Patel—which was commissioned on May 9, 2015 in Porbandar.

Supplementing this FOB is another upgraded FOB at Mandvi, plus a storage-cum-launch complex for BrahMos-1 supersonic multi-role cruise missiles at the Indian Air Force’s Naliya AFS.