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NEW DELHI, March 5 (AFP) - India on Tuesday launched a new military intelligence agency to bring the existing army, navy and airforce networks under one roof.

The Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) is modelled along Western lines and will be headed by an army lieutinent general, a defence ministry official said.

"The DIA is aimed at bringing intelligence networks of the three services under one umbrella and unlike its previous incarnation -- the directorate of military intelligence -- will be a vibrant organisation," the official said.

"It will be tasked with intelligence-gathering through satellite imagery, high-altitude aerial reconissance imagery and other hi-tech tools to enable it to give the armed forces a real-time intelligence edge on the battlefield", he said.

The DIA came into being following recommendations by a panel of experts that examined the army's failure to detect the intrusion of hundreds of Pakistan-backed fighters into Indian Kashmir in 1999, which pushed the two nations dangerously close to all-out war. 

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