Israel Tests Missile Defense Radar

The Israeli military was able to track the movement of a mock Iranian missile last week in a test of the Green Pine Radar, the Jerusalem Post reported (see GSN, Jan, 17).

The radar detected and identified a jet-fired Blue Sparrow test target designed to simulate a stealth-equipped Iranian Shahab 3 ballistic missile.  No actual missile was fired in the exercise.

Israel’s Citron Tree command center transmitted the target’s flight information to the Arrow air-defense system.

The test was part of an annual series of exercises and was not spurred by a perceived imminent missile threat from a neighboring state, according to Israeli defense sources.  Israel plans to fire an Arrow missile interceptor at an actual test missile in an exercise later this year.

Israeli defense officials opted about one month ago to continue work on the Arrow 3 air-defense system, a next-generation version of the current Arrow 2 that would be capable of intercepting higher-speed, higher-altitude targets at a greater range than its predecessor (Yaakov Katz, Jerusalem Post, April 15).

Meanwhile, Israel is expected to receive access to the U.S. Ballistic Missile Early Warning System, which would provide an advance warning of incoming Iranian missiles, Agence France-Presse reported yesterday.

“Israel asked the U.S. to connect to its Ballistic Missile Early Warning System as part of its efforts to defend itself from missile attacks, first of all from Iran,” a high-level Israeli defense official said yesterday.  “The U.S. has agreed to the request.”

Israel used information from the global U.S. Air Force radar network during the 1991 Gulf War, when Iraq targeted the state with a volley of Scud missiles, and again during the 2003 invasion of Iraq (Agence France-Presse/Spacewar.com, April 14).

Back to top
About Newswire  |  Contact National Journal  |  Re-Use Guidelines © Copyright 2008 by National Journal Group, Inc. The material in this section is produced independently for NTI by National Journal Group, Inc. Any reproduction or retransmission, in whole or in part, is a violation of federal law and is strictly prohibited without the consent of the National Journal Group, Inc. All rights reserved.