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Israel completes test of extended range interceptor

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‘Barak’ extended range missile can take out aircraft and missiles up to 150 km away.

By Paul Shindman, World Israel News

Israel Aerospace Industries announced Monday that it had successfully completed a series of tests of the Barak air defense system showing it can intercept targets, including ballistic missiles, up to 150 km (90 miles) distance.

A derivative of IAI’s successful Barak-8 missile that has a range of 100 km (60 miles), the Extended Range interceptor (ER) version is “designed to intercept a variety of systems in different ranges,” the company said in a statement.

“The evolution of airborne threats across the globe, combined with geopolitical changes, requires an advanced, agile, and versatile air defense system,” said IAI CEO Boaz Levy. “The Barak system was operationally proven against countless threats, including some of the most challenging ones today.”

“This series of experiments added another tier to the system’s capabilities in the long run and against a wider range of threats and joins many dozens of experiments performed in the Barak system across all its derivatives,” Levy said.

IAI co-developed a version of the Barak missile for the Indian Army with India’s Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO).

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In 2017, IAI was awarded $1.6 billion in contracts, at the time the largest defense deal in Israel’s Defense Industries’ history, with IAI to provide an advanced air and missile defense systems to the Indian army.

A subsequent deal worth $777 million was reached to supply the maritime version of the Barak-8 surface-to-air missile system on seven Indian Navy vessels at a cost of $111 million each.

Israel uses the Barak-8 on its own vessels that are capable of intercepting aerial threats such as missiles and jets, including the kinds of anti-ship missiles that the Hezbollah terror group in Lebanon has in its arsenal.

Israel and India enjoy the sharing of technological developments, and India is one of Israel’s biggest clients in the defense technology market. Israel’s military delegation to India is second in size only to its delegation to America.