India deploys spy drones in Kashmir

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) were first used over the Kishtwar mountain heights in southern Kashmir on December 17, two days after insurgents raided an arms dump in the region's Singhpora town, they said.

"We conducted sorties over two days and the data we downloaded from the UAV were vital," a senior official from the army's aviation wing said in New Delhi.

The drones, fitted with high-powered cameras, flew for several hours on each sortie.

"The drones failed to detect enemy movement but returned with very valuable information for our mappers," he said, adding that the UAVs were after Lashkar-e-Taiba guerrillas suspected to be behind the arms raid.

India in 1999 used French-built Mirage 2000s and Russian MiG jets to bombard militants occupying Kashmir's strategic Kargil peaks, escalating a skirmish which resulted in the deaths of 1,000 combatants on both sides.

"But we are keeping our drones well within Indian territory and if the sorties pay us dividends then we will continue to use them in other parts of Kashmir as well," said the official, who asked not to be named.

India in recent years has developed close military ties with Israel which, besides the UAVs, has agreed to sell it three Phalcon airborne early warning systems.