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| Israel-Palestine-Jordan |
| US to activate anti-missile radar in Israel next month |
| 2008-11-23 |
| JERUSALEM - A radar system, which the United States agreed in July to deploy in Israel to counter a perceived missile threat from Iran, is to go operational in mid-December, army radio reported on Saturday. The US military technicians who will operate the system are currently carrying out the final tests, the radio said. The radar system, which has a range of more than 2,000 kilometres (1,250 miles), has been installed in the Negev desert in southern Israel. Some 120 US troops have been deployed to Israel to set up and operate the system, public radio reported in late September. “The idea here is to help Israel create a layered missile defence capability to protect it from all sorts of threats in the region, near and far,” a senior Pentagon official told AFP in late July. The so-called X-band radar system, also known as an AN/TPY2, is a powerful phased array radar that is designed to track ballistic missiles through space and provide ground-based missiles with the targeting data needed to intercept them. The United States deployed a similar system to Japan in 2006 in response to a North Korean missile test. It plans to install a larger one in the Czech Republic. The Pentagon was scheduled to deploy the radar to Israel in the autumn of 2009 for a joint exercise but moved it up a year following the talks in Washington earlier this year. The system includes two massive radar antennae which have been under construction near the Dimona nuclear plant in the Negev. The Maariv newspaper reported on October 5 that the two 400-metre-high (1,300 foot) masts being erected near the top-secret military plant where Israel is widely believed to have developed the only nuclear arsenal in the Middle East would be the largest in the region. Data from the radar will be provided to Israel’s missile defence system, but it will remain owned and operated by the US military. |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #1 I'm really curious re the orders the operators will receive from their incoming CINC. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2008-11-23 07:30 |