NEW DELHI- India today succeeded for the first time in using a mobile launcher to test-fire a long-range missile capable of delivering a nuclear warhead deep inside rival China.
Today's launch was the third test of the Agni V missile.
“Successful test-firing of Agni V from a cannister makes the missile a prized asset for our forces,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Twitter after the test on an island off the eastern state of Orissa.
The Agni V, developed by India's Defence Research and Development Organization, was first tested in April 2012.
Analysts say the Agni V has the range to strike any target on the Chinese mainland, including military installations in the far northeast. India sees the rocket, which has a range of 5,000 kilometres , as a key boost to its regional power aspirations. Agni, meaning “fire” in Sanskrit, is the name given to a series of rockets India developed as part of a guided missile development project launched in 1983.
India and China, each with a population of more than one billion, have prickly relations and a legacy of mistrust that stems from a brief but bloody border war in 1962.