[image: IMI said in 2004 that it had produced a cruise missile, theDelilah, with a range of 250 kilometres. PHOTO:REUTERS]
JERUSALEM: Israel is working on a new missile system capable of hittingtargets anywhere in the Middle East, Defence Minister Avigdor Liebermansaid on Monday.
State-owned arms manufacturer Israel Military Industries (IMI) woulddeliver “within a few years” an advanced integrated system “allowingprecise hits by remote launching”, he said in a statement.Lieberman added that the contract with IMI was budgeted at “hundreds ofmillions of shekels”.
The Israeli shekel is currently trading at 3.63 to the US dollar.“The project for setting up a precision rocket and missile system isunderway,” Lieberman said in the statement.
“Part of it is already in production and part is in the final phases ofresearch and development.
“We are acquiring and developing precision fire systems that will allow…the Israel Defence Forces to cover within a few years every point in theregion.”
Israel is considered the leading military power in the Middle East andbelieved to be the only country in the region to possess nuclear weapons.
Foreign military experts say it has several batteries of its Jerichoballistic missile, capable of delivering nuclear warheads.
IMI said in 2004 that it had produced a cruise missile, the Delilah, with arange of 250 kilometres.
It also has an array of anti-missile rocket systems but Monday’s statementquoted IMI chairman Yitzhak Aharonovitch saying that the new armament would“reflect the company’s technological capabilities, which specialise in theability to fire accurately, to strike at a variety of ground targets”.
Israel faces a variety of threats and considers Iran its most dangerous foein the region.
It is regularly targeted by rockets and mortar fire from the Gaza Strip,ruled by Islamist movement Hamas.
Another of its enemies is the Iran-backed Shiite group Hezbollah based inneighbouring Lebanon.
Israel also shares a border with Syria, where Iran and Hezbollah arefighting alongside President Bashar al-Assad in his country’s civil war.Netanyahu has pledged to prevent Tehran from further entrenching itself inSyria and a series of recent strikes that have killed Iranians there havebeen attributed to Israel.
Lieberman did not reveal details of the planned new system or its potentialtargets and his office did not respond to *AFP* requests for information. -APP/AFP