Israel, Germany Partner On Nukes

Jerusalem – Israel’s and Germany’s security establishments are jointly developing a new and advanced system to locate ballistic missiles with a nuclear warhead known as “Bluebird,” according to Defense News.

The system, described as a highly classified development, is meant to locate the ballistic missile by means of sensors and infrared rays and to identify, while moving, if it carries a nuclear warhead, explosives, or if it has no warhead (like a number of the Scud missiles that Saddam Hussein fired in the first Gulf War). The data will be relayed in real time to various systems on the ground that will analyze them and cause the destruction of the target at the appropriate altitude. The Israeli-German development team plans to install the system on unmanned aerial vehicles that will patrol on a regular basis, on missile boats and even on stationary systems. One security source said, “Bluebird can hunt the missile and identify it at long ranges, it can relay the relevant information to systems in Israel, and we will then be able to defend ourselves better and attack the target.”

An Israeli security source admitted that the security establishment was quick to tell the Americans of the progress in developing the system, with the intention of having it join the project, but for an unclear reason the details leaked to the media and were reported in
Defense News and the Germans were very angry.

“This caused great embarrassment in the Defense Ministry,” the source said.

David Bedein can be reached at dbedein@israelbehindthenews.com.