Photo Courtesy of UN Photo/Marco Castro
Just one day after Israel and the U.S. conducted another successful test for their jointly-developed missile defense system, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vaguely promised upcoming headlines of their own in the nuclear realm. “The world will witness inauguration of a number of big achievements in the field of nuclear (technology) in coming days,” the Iranian Fars News Agency quoted Ahmadinejad as saying in a speech on Saturday.
While the reports weren’t necessarily related, Israel’s advancing defenses certainly have Iran in mind. On Friday, the Israeli Ministry of Defense released a statement saying the Arrow missile defense system successfully tracked and prepared an interception plan for a target over the Mediterranean Sea that was “representative of potential ballistic missile threats facing Israel.”
The test did not involve an actual interception, but focused on targeting and tracking. U.S. Ballistic Missile Defense System elements also interrelated successfully with the test.
The Defense Ministry portrayed the test as a significant step towards bettering Israel’s defense against missiles. “This was a major milestone in the development of the Arrow Weapon System and provides confidence in operational Israeli capabilities to defeat the developing ballistic missile threat,” said the statement.
The system is aimed at longer-range missiles, such as the ones claimed by the Iranians. Tehran is believed to have missiles capable of reaching Israel and beyond. One of the concerns regarding the Iranian nuclear program is that they have conducted tests regarding mounting a warhead on a missile.
(By Joshua Spurlock, www.themideastupdate.com, February 12, 2012)