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Written by Aljazeera Aljazeera
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Category: News News
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Published: 28 September 2008 28 September 2008
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Last Updated: 28 September 2008 28 September 2008
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Created: 28 September 2008 28 September 2008
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Defence co-operation
The Israeli military said on Sunday that it has "various forms" of
co-operation with the US military but that "as a rule we do not detail
the content" of the ties.
Questioned by the AFP news agency, a defence ministry spokesman said he did "not know about such a deployment".
A senior Pentagon official had said in late July that Robert Gates, the
US defence secretary, agreed to explore deploying a powerful missile
defence targeting radar in Israel.
"The idea here is to help Israel create a layered missile defence
capability to protect it from all sorts of threats in the region, near
and far," the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said.
Besides the radar, Gates also agreed to explore sharing missile early
warning launch data, as well as US funding for two costly Israeli
projects designed to counter short-range rockets and mortars, he said.
The official said deploying the X-band radar was a near-term proposition, and "all this is moving pretty quickly."
Land-based system
"We are going to station this land-based system there, and the Israelis would plug into it," the official said.
An X-band radar is a powerful phased array radar that can target the
warhead of a long or medium range missile in space. The US has deployed
one in Japan and plans to install a larger X-band radar in the Czech
Republic.
The official linked the assistance to the US administration's push for
progress on a roadmap for peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
But it appeared to be more directly related to Israel's concern about Iran's nuclear programme.