NEW DELHI, Jan 29: A proposed grand air combat exercise involving US and Indian air forces is expected to enable New Delhi to test its nuclear-capable Russian warplanes against American-built ones, an Indian newspaper said on Tuesday.

“Pakistan is upset with plans for a grand India-US air combat exercise that could provide Indians with valuable tips on how to blunt Islamabad’s ability to use fighter jets to launch nuclear weapons,” The Hindustan Times said in a despatch quoting sources in Washington.

The planned exercise and training, slated to take place later this year or in early 2004, will represent a new dimension to India-US defence relations which have steadily intensified over the last two years.

James Law, a spokesman of the US Air Forces’ headquarters for Pacific operations, defended the exercise plans, saying it was “consistent with President Bush’s strategic objectives in South Asia,” according to the Hindustan Times.

Law added: “We would not want any neighbouring country to get alarmed by these exercises.” The ambitious exercise itself is said to be in its “early planning stages”.

According to the report, this will be for the first time that fighter jets built by the US and Russia will be pitted against one another in an exercise. The US plans to fly its top air-to-air fighter, the F-15C, against the Russian Su-30s acquired by India over the last six years.

The India newspaper quoted GlobalSecurity.org, an independent defence consulting body, as saying that Pakistan had supposedly practised with its F-16s, a toss-bombing technique that could be used to deliver nuclear bombs.

The planned exercise will be the most superior in terms of combat-orientation, it is said. The earlier exercise at Agra involved military airlift operations, while the one that followed in Alaska involved parachute jumps, the Hindustan Times said.