Japan to Purchase Unmanned Drones

Japan plans to deploy long-endurance unmanned spy planes beginning in fiscal 2007, Kyodo News reported today (see GSN, Jan. 10).

The drones would be used for reconnaissance on ballistic missile launches and for collecting images in the event of a WMD incident, among other functions, Defense Agency Director General Fukushiro Nukaga said yesterday.

The agency plans to initially import the aircraft from the United States, but would later seek to develop its own version, Nukaga said (Kyodo News/BBC Monitoring, Jan. 12).

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