JERUSALEM: Israeli and US defence officials yesterday carried out an advanced test of a new system against short-range missiles, the defence ministry said. The defence agencies of both states “completed a successful intercept test of the David’s Sling Weapon System against a short-range ballistic missile today,” it said in a statement.
A year ago the David’s Sling interceptor was successfully tested, according to the statement. But an Israeli official said this was the first time David’s Sling was tested “in its entirety”, including identifying the target missile, launching the projectile and successfully shooting the target down.
The first test took place in November 2012, days after a truce brought an end to eight days of fighting between Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza during which over 1,000 rockets, much of them Grads, were fired at the Jewish state. Many of the rockets were intercepted by the Iron Dome short-range defence system. The Arrow, a cutting-edge system designed to counter long-range missiles, has successfully intercepted missiles comparable to Iran’s Shihab-3 in a variety of test conditions.
David’s Sling was aimed at bridging the gap between the Arrow and Iron Dome, with the official stating it was aimed at intercepting projectiles “from Grad to Scud”, the latter referring to the long-range missiles fired by Iraq at Israel during the 1991 Gulf War.
RIYADH: Flash floods sparked by torrential rain in largely desert Saudi Arabia have killed seven people over the past three days, the civil defence authority said yesterday.
Five other people are still missing after parts of the capital Riyadh and the northeastern city of Arar were inundated, authority spokesman Colonel Abdullah Al Harithi told the official SPA news agency.
The storms that have accompanied the downpours have brought down power lines, sparking outages in parts of north Riyadh.
Schools and universities in the capital have been closed since Sunday. Flooding of underpasses on major thoroughfares has sparked traffic chaos for Riyadh’s more than five million residents.
Saudi Arabia normally experiences such low rainfall that religious leaders often organise special prayers for rain.
But in May last year, around 20 people were killed in flooding sparked by the kingdom’s heaviest rainfall in 25 years.AFP
