News / Saudi Arabia

Saudis examining Israel’s Iron Dome for purchase: Report

Saturday, 28 April 2018 6:06 PM [ Last Update: Saturday, 28 April 2018 6:24 PM ]

A picture taken on April 14, 2018 shows an Israeli Iron Dome missile system deployed in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights near the Syrian border. (AFP photo)

Saudi Arabia is mulling buying a missile system owned and operated by the Israeli regime, a new report suggests, amid increasing hints of the normalization of relations between the kingdom and the regime.

Basler Zeitung, a Swiss paper, reported this week that military experts from Saudi Arabia had examined Iron Dome during a military weapons show in the United Arab Emirates and that a potential purchase might be possible in future.

This as there is a low expert opinion in general of the missile system. In 2014, Theodore A. Postol, a professor of science, technology, and national security policy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), studied a variety of publicly available data on the missile system, arguing that the Iron Dome's intercept rate, defined as destruction of a rocket's warhead, was "perhaps as low as five percent but could well be lower."

The Swiss daily report said experts were examining other Israeli-made weapons for such purchases, including Trophy Active Protection System, which is installed on tanks to detect and neutralize rockets and other projectiles.

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