The Shaheen missile IRBM series (named after a white eagle that lives in the mountains of Pakistan) was developed by National Defence Complex (NDC), a subsidiary of the NESCOM which was formed in 1993, under the guidance of Dr. Samar Mubarakmand.
Since the early 1990s, Pakistan has faced the threat of ballistic missile attacks from India, against which it has fought several wars in the past. With the heightening of tensions in the region between China-India-Pakistan, India started on a weapons development program to build ballistic missiles using the knowledge it gained from its civilian space program. To counter this the Government of Pakistan decided to procure several Chinese M-11 missiles to deter the Indians. In May 1998 India tested nuclear weapons. Two weeks later Pakistan followed suit. With India and weapons of mass destruction and missile delivery systems, this threat intensified. Both India and Pakistan has also developed and tested missile delivery systems.
In 1999, the Kargil War between India and Pakistan became the first direct conflict between two declared nuclear powers. Even though the war had not been openly declared by either side, Nawaz Sharif, the Prime Minister of Pakistan at that time in his biography has stated that Pakistan's nuclear assets were brought to a high alert level status without actually having any operational warheads.
The Shaheen-II variant is an Intermediate-Range Ballistic Missile (IRBM) which is the longer range variant of Shaheen-I missile. It uses a two-stage solid propellant motor and is Pakistan's largest and most capable ballistic missile. Shaheen-II was successfully test fired for the first time on March 9, 2004. At that time, National Engineering and Science Commission Chairman Samar Mubarakmand said that the missile was a two-stage rocket weighing 25 tons with a diameter of 1.4 meters and a length of 17.5 meters, and a range of 2,500 kilometers. Shaheen-II missile can carry both conventional and non-conventional payloads.
Shaheen-II is very accurate and has a CEP of 50 m. It is achieved through a post separation booster to provide terminal course correction.
Other missiles currently in the service of Pakistan are Hatf-I (BRBM), Abdali-I (BRBM), Ghaznavi (SRBM), Ghauri-I (MRBM), Ghauri-II (MRBM), Ghauri-III (IRBM) (under development), Shaheen-I (MRBM), Babur (cruise missile) and Ra'ad (cruise missile).
|Hatf-I/IA (BRBM)||Hatf-I/IA||80/100 km||500 kg||Deployed||300+|
|Abdali (SRBM)||Hatf-II||180 km||500 kg||Deployed, Under production||200+|
|Ghaznavi (SRBM)||Hatf-III||290 km||500 kg||Deployed, Under production||~400+|
|Shaheen-I (MRBM)||Hatf-IV||750 km||750 kg||Deployed, Under production||~105-350|
|Ghauri-I (MRBM)||Hatf-V||1500 km||700-1000 kg||Deployed, Under production||~100+|
|Ghauri-II (MRBM)||Hatf-VA||2,400 km, More range with lighter payload.||1200 kg||Operational, Under production||~100+|
|Shaheen-II (IRBM)||Hatf-VI||3,800 km, More range with lighter payload.||1000+ kg||Deployed, Under production||30+|
|Babur (Cruise Missile)||Hatf-VII||700 km||500 kg||Deployed||100-1000|
|Ra'ad (Air Launched Cruise Missile)||Hatf-VIII||350 km||Tested||---|
|M-11 (SRBM)||300 km||500 kg||In service||Unknown|
Total number of boosted nuclear warheads are 150 Note: Not every missile has nuclear payload.