Israel, US To Stage Joint Exercise
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 5:34 p.m. ET
JERUSALEM (AP) -- Israeli and American air defense forces will conduct missile launches during a five-day joint exercise in southern Israel this week, a spokesman for the Israeli army said Sunday.
The exercise, which starts Monday, was planned more than a year ago and is not related to the U.S. and British airstrikes Friday on Iraq, the spokesman said.
However, until Sunday the military had refused to comment on the joint exercise or even confirm foreign reports that it was to take place.
The announcement came after Iraq threatened to take revenge on Israel and the United States for the airstrikes south of Baghdad, which killed two people.
``We will teach the new American administration and the Zionist entity (Israel) lessons on Jihad (holy war) and steadfastness,'' the Iraqi government's official Qadissiya newspaper said in a front page editorial Sunday.
The official Iraqi news agency said Saddam has ordered the formation of a 300,000-man volunteer force charged with aiding the Palestinians and freeing Jerusalem from Israeli control.
The U.S.-Israeli exercise, called Juniper Cobra, is part of routine training to test ``interoperability of American and Israeli air defense systems,'' the military spokesman said.
The spokesman said U.S. forces will fire Patriot missiles during the exercise, and the cruiser U.S.S. Porter, which carries radar capable of detecting missiles as they approach Israel, which will be stationed off the Israeli coast.
About 400 personnel from the U.S. 69th Air Defense Artillery Brigade have arrived in Israel from Ansbach, Germany for the exercise, the spokesman said.
The United States deployed Patriot missiles in Israel during the 1991 Persian Gulf war after Israel was hit by Scud missiles fired from Iraq. They proved ineffectual, and 39 Scuds hit Israel cities during the war.
Patriot missiles returned to Israel in 1998, when Baghdad's obstruction of U.N. weapons inspections triggered a confrontation that ended with a brief U.S. and British air campaign against Iraq.
The announcement Sunday made no mention of the Arrow missile, which Israel developed with U.S. financial support after the war for defense against incoming ballistic missiles. So far, one Arrow battery has been deployed with what officials called ``initial operational capability.''