Pakistan Navy's Move From Karachi

ISLAMABAD — The Pakistani Navy this week commissioned a new air base intended to move its air assets away from the vulnerable and congested city of Karachi, and to help protect the coast and Pakistan’s maritime territory.

Pakistan Navy's Move From Karachi

Air Base is in Turbat in the southwest province of Balochistan, near the strategic new deepwater port of Gwadar and to the Iranian border. Chief of Naval Staff Adm. Muhammad Asif Sandila was the chief guest at a ceremony Wednesday that marked the base’s official opening.

According to the Associated Press of Pakistan (APP), “The Aviation Base will strengthen seaward security along the Makran coast and beyond and will also lead to commercial flying activities, which would act as a catalyst for economic development of the Makran division in general and Kech District in particular.”

The Navy would not comment on what type of aircraft would be based there.

However, the consensus among analysts is that they are likely to be rotary and fixed-wing patrol types, and at present, at least, this may be all the base is able to support.

Analyst Kaiser Tufail, a former air commodore with the Pakistani Air Force, said PNS Siddique is currently unsuitable to base strike aircraft as it is “too far to pay a visit to our neighbors [India].” He noted, however, that Pasni, an air base shared by the Air Force and Navy, is “just 70 kilometers from Turbat.”

There have been security concerns about the Navy’s aircraft since the May 2011 attack on PNS Mehran Naval Air Base in Karachi that destroyed a number of aircraft, including two new P-3C Orion patrol planes.

The Navy’s Orions are now based in Pasni, but any remaining naval aircraft in Mehran “must get out,” said analyst Brian Cloughley, a former Australian defense attaché to Islamabad.

Enveloped by urban sprawl, Mehran is difficult to defend. Until it was hidden by stacked shipping containers, the apron at Mehran was visible from a flyover on the road just outside the base.

Though the new base is far safer than Mehran, it is nevertheless “somewhere else to have to guard,” Cloughley said.

However, PNS Siddique will also be another instrument of the Navy’s successful civilian outreach program, like its presence in the port of Ormara. In April the Navy shifted the bulk of its operational fleet, including it submarines, from the congested and polluted port of Karachi to Jinnah Naval Base in Ormara. The development of Jinnah Naval Base has led to considerable benefits for the local population.

Likewise, “facilities such as state-of-the-art hospital, education institution, etc., at PNS Siddique will enable the local populace access to quality services at their doorstep and set off a new era of prosperity in the region,” according to the APP report.