JERUSALEM: A joint US-Israeli missile defense system meant to shield Israel from Iranian attack hit a snag when a series of tests were aborted because of malfunctions, defense officials said Thursday.
The Arrow, a joint project between state-run Israel Aerospace Industries Ltd. and Chicago-based Boeing Co., is part of a multilayered missile-defense system Israel is working on to protect it from all forms of attack, ranging from short-range rocket fire from Lebanon and Gaza to longer-range missiles from Iran. Israeli officials and analysts played down the glitches in the Arrow tests, saying they were expected in such a complicated project and would not affect the long-term development of the system.
A statement from the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency said the mission was an interception test and also exercised the Arrow system’s interoperability with other elements of the US ballistic missile defense system. The tests of the Arrow II system took place over the past week off the coast of California, most recently on Wednesday, the defense officials said. But communication glitches between the missile and the radar led US defense officials to abort the test before an intercepting missile could be fired, they said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to disclose details of the tests.
The Pentagon said the target missile was dropped from a C-17 aircraft. It said the radar system detected the target, but “not all test conditions to launch the Arrow Interceptor were met, and it was not launched.” It said the results were being analyzed.
An operational version of Arrow II is partially deployed, and the US and Israel are in the preliminary stages of developing an upgraded Arrow III.
The homegrown “Iron Dome” system is designed to bring down short-range rockets of the kind Palestinian and Lebanese fighters use.
