Amidst the ongoing crisis in West Asia, the story an India-born engineer, who allegedly stole technology for US and sold it to China has resurfaced.
According to multiple media reports, the engineer who was born in Mumbai, helped develop the United States’ stealth B-2 Spirit bomber and later sold its secrets to China.
The information was passed to China to help them in developing cruise missile and bomber technologies.
The reason for the engineer being back in the news is very obvious. In the ongoing stand-off between Israel and Iran, the former has roped in US military forces.
The US struck Iran’s nuclear sites deploying the B-2 bombers. The US attacks, carried out by B-2 stealth bombers, targeted three Iranian nuclear sites: Isfahan and Iran’s main enrichment plants in Fordo and Natanz.
US Joint Chiefs Chairman Dan Caine said seven B-2 stealth bombers had flown 18 hours to drop 14 GBU-57 bunker-buster bombs
Pentagon officials described their attack on three nuclear sites in Iran as a tightly choreographed operation that included B-2 bombers carrying 30,000-pound bunker-buster bombs and submarine-fired Tomahawk cruise missiles hitting a trio of sites in less than a half-hour.
They also went on to add that B-2 alone has best chance of destroying heavily fortified sites connected to the Iranian nuclear programme buried deep underground.
It is ironical that Donald Trump deployed B-2 bombers just weeks after making a fresh diplomatic overture to leaders in Iran. The heavy strategic bomber, also known as the Northrop B-S Spirit or Stealth Bomber, uses stealth technology.
It is worth mentioning that the B-2 Spirit, built by Northrop Grumman, remains one of the most secretive and capable bombers in America’s nuclear arsenal. Its radar-evading design allows it to penetrate enemy airspace undetected and deliver both conventional and nuclear payloads.
In the end, B-2 bombers and US fighter planes flew in and out of Iran without a shot being fired at them.