A HIGH-MOBILITY vehicle jointly developed by Thailand and Malaysia under the Asean Defence Industry initiative is the latest armoured car to be deployed in volatile areas.

The vehicle is called the Lipanbara, after a poisonous centipede found in Malaysian jungles.

Unveiled by Prime Minister Najib Razak, the high-mobility armoured vehicle will be used mainly for to insert and extract troops and for escort duties.

Najib, who was accompanied by Defence Minister Hishammuddin Hussein, Armed Forces chief General Zulkefli Mohamed Zin and Inspector-General of Police Khalid Abu Bakar, also took a tour of other exhibits at the 15th Defence Services Asia (DSA) Exhibition and Conference 2016 in Kuala Lumpur.

The armoured vehicle has a maximum payload of two tonnes as well as a machine gun (M134D-H Gatling Gun 7.62mm from Dillon Aero), laser warning system and a 76mm grenade-launcher system.

The first Lipanbara, built as part of a collaboration between DRB-HICOM Defence Technologies (Deftech) and Thailand’s Chaseri Co Ltd, should be delivered to the Malaysian armed forces by the middle of this year.

Deftech, which won a contract to prepare 20 units for the Malaysian government, also displayed the AV8 Gempita armoured vehicle. The AV8 is equipped with an anti-tank guided missile and will be employed by Malaysia’s Armoured Regiment and Mechanised Units of the Armed Forces.

Deftech group chief executive officer Lt-Colonel Amril Samsudin said the Malaysian army would be equipped with 54 AV8 Gempitas by 2020.

“It will be the most sophisti-cated system in the Malaysian

army inventory and set to transform the dynamics of modern battle,” he said.