Israel's Arrow II missile defense system was tested at a U.S. range off the California coast early Thursday morning but problems prevented the launch of the system's interceptor, the Pentagon said.
Partly underwritten by Washington, Arrow is designed to defend Israel from missile attacks from Syria and Iran...
In a test involving three U.S. missile interceptors, Arrow tracked a target missile dropped from a C-17 aircraft, the Pentagon said in a statement.
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....Defense officials said three tests in the U.S. of the missile defense system have been aborted over the past week. The tests were carried out in the U.S. because that would allow for greater distances than would be possible in Israel, Defense Ministry spokesman Shlomo Dror said.
Dror said tests of the same Arrow system in Israel earlier this year were very successful. He said malfunctions of systems still in their experimental stage were to be expected and said other tests were called off on Friday and Monday.
The defense officials said the Arrow 2 was meant to intercept a dummy Iranian Shihab missile. But they added that U.S. officials stopped the launch of the intercepting missile because of a communications glitch....
Upgrades to Arrow, which has already been deployed at two sites in Israel, are widely seen as part of U.S. efforts to persuade Israel not to attack Iran preemptively while the Obama administration pursues diplomacy with Tehran. Full story
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