<%@LANGUAGE="VBSCRIPT" CODEPAGE="1252"%> WorldTribune.com: Mobile — U.S., Israel set 'major' missile defense exercise next month

U.S., Israel set 'major' missile defense exercise next month

Thursday, September 17, 2009   E-Mail this story   Free Headline Alerts

TEL AVIV — Israel and the United States have scheduled a major missile defense exercise in October 2009.

Officials said the two militaries would conduct a missile defense exercise in Israel. They said the exercise would include such systems as Israel's Arrow, the U.S.-origin PAC-3, Aegis and the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense.

"This will be a major and extremely important exercise to demonstrate interoperability between Israeli and U.S. systems," an official said.

The exercise, titled Juniper Cobra, would be conducted by the U.S. Missile Defense Agency and European Command. Juniper Cobra has been an annual exercise held since 2005.

In September, the U.S. Navy sent an Aegis-class cruiser to Israel as part of the first tour of the Mediterranean Sea by the USS Higgins. The Higgins contains the Aegis missile defense system as well as the Tomahawk cruise missile.

Officials said MDA was examining the prospect of maintaining advanced U.S. missile defense systems in Israel or Turkey.

"The [U.S.] administration doesn't want to deploy missile defense assets in Europe, and Israel was regarded as an alternative," the official said.

In 2008, Eucom transferred the advanced X-band radar to an Israel Air Force base outside Dimona. The radar was meant to detect missile attacks from Iran.

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