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US increase missile defenses in Persian Gulf

31 January 2010 04:00 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Ziya Agazade â€“ APA. As the Obama administration edges toward imposing tougher sanctions on Iran, it has begun upgrading its approach to defending its Persian Gulf allies against potential Iranian missile strikes, officials said Saturday, APA reports citing â€œAssociated Pressâ€.

The United States has quietly increased the capability of land-based Patriot defensive missiles in several Gulf Arab nations, and one military official said the Navy is beefing up the presence of ships capable of knocking down hostile missiles in flight.

The officials discussed aspects of the defensive strategy on condition of anonymity because some elements are classified.

The moves have been in the works for months and are part of a broader adjustment in the U.S. approach to missile defense, including in Europe and Asia. Details have not been publicly announced, in part because of diplomatic sensitivities in Gulf countries which worry about Iranian military capabilities but are cautious about acknowledging U.S. protection.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates has spoken publicly about a new approach to missile defenses, both in Europe and the Gulf.

"I don’t want to get into it in too much detail," Gates said in September. "but the reality is we are working both on a bilateral and a multilateral basis in the Gulf to establish the same kind of regional missile defense that would protect our facilities out there as well as our friends and allies."

Gates said the adjusted approach is based in part on a belief by U.S. intelligence that Iran has not been progressing as fast as previously believed on development of a long-range ballistic missile, but is concentrating more heavily on short- and medium-range missiles of the sort that the Patriot and the Aegis systems are designed to defend against.