Mystery balloon hovered over Andaman & Nicobar Islands around tri-service military drill

In the last week of December 2021, the Andaman and Nicobar Command (ANC) – India’s only tri-service command – concluded a multi-domain tri-service exercise designed to validate rapid response capability with regard to perceived threats to the strategically-important eastern islands.

The footage released by the ANC later depicted elite assets from the four service components – the Army, the Air Force, the Navy and the Coast Guard participating in a network-centric environment.

Only days later, on January 6, public sightings of an unidentified high-altitude balloon over Port Blair were reported on social media.

Pictures shared by locals on social media and published by a local news portal show eerie similarities with the Chinese spy balloon that recently floated over nuclear silos in the United States and later shot down by an F-22 raptor. The size, shape, use of non-transparent material and solar panels are some of the visible common features associated with the two large floating objects.

Earlier, without naming a country, a senior U.S. defense official confirmed that similar Chinese spy balloons had previously been spotted over South Asia.

“These kinds of activities are often undertaken at the direction of the People’s Liberation Army, or PLA. Over the past several years, Chinese balloons have previously been spotted over countries across five continents, including in East Asia, South Asia, and Europe,” a senior US defense official told reporters at a background briefing.

SIGNIFICANCE OF ANDAMAN & NICOBAR ISLANDS
The Andaman and Nicobar Command is the only tri-service command of the Indian military with assets of the Navy, the Air force and the Army working together. The Andaman and Nicobar islands have immense strategic importance for India as most trade channels cut through the region and, amid China’s muscle flexing in the region, India is looking at enhancing its maritime and surveillance capabilities here.

The integrated command was set up in 2001 keeping in mind India’s strategic interests in South East Asia. Since then, there has been an increase in deployment of military assets in the region. China has been expanding its naval operations in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR). In the guise of anti-piracy operations, the Chinese have often brought in submarines in the IOR.

In the last decade, the Chinese Navy has been frequently sending submarine missions in the Indian Ocean Region that occasionally closed in on Indian waters, reaching up to Colombo and Karachi. Such missions are usually backed by a regular ship. The deployments have included nuclear as well as non-nuclear submarines. An alternating trend of sending a conventional submarine and a nuclear sub to follow it has been noticed, sources say.

Considering the strategic location of the islands, regular drills are conducted here by the Indian Navy with an aim to counter growing Chinese influence in the region. At the end of December 2021, a joint exercise involving the three forces carried out a critical joint exercise in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

As part of the exercise, troops of the Indian Army, Navy and Air Force were mobilised for amphibious landing, in close coordination with the paradrop of airborne troops. Amphibious landing is a term used for ground troops being indicted on the sea shore from the ships under covering fire from the warships and aircraft.

Video footage later released by ANC indicated coordinated operational deployment of the navy’s Sea Guardian drones, the P-8I Poseidon – advanced long-range, anti-submarine warfare (ASW), anti-surface warfare (ASuW), and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) missions aircraft, as well as the Dornier aircraft.

Operation of IAF’s integrated air defence systems, Su-30 MKI fighters, networked air defence mission control was also displayed. Among other operations were the special Heliborne operations, amphibious assault operations, airborne assault by the elite Shatrujeet Brigade of the army and Armed Forces Special Operation Davison (AFSOD), as well as special maritime operations by Marine Commandos (MARCOS).

Incidentally, the indigenous Advanced Light Helicopter (ALH) MK III aircraft was inducted to INS Utkrosh at Port Blair by Commander-in-Chief of the Andaman and Nicobar Command Lieutenant General Ajai Singh on January 28, 2022, weeks after the sighting.

While questions around the capabilities of ‘spy’ balloons remain, the Pentagon has confirmed that it “took immediate steps to protect against the balloon’s collection of sensitive information, mitigating its intelligence value to the PRC.” In case of the incident over Indian air space there is still no official word from Indian authorities on the mystery balloon seen over the Indian airspace in January 2022.