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US fails to hit mock Iran missile US missile test fails in Pacific
(about 1 hour later)
A US missile defence test that simulated an attack from Iran has failed, the defence department says. A US missile defence test designed to shoot down long-range missiles was aborted when the radar system failed.
It said a sea-based radar system fault had meant a long-range defence missile had failed to intercept its target. Rick Lehner, a Missile Defense Agency spokesman, said the target missile represented the type of technology that North Korea or Iran might develop.
A recent Pentagon report said Iran posed a "significant" threat to the US and its allies in the Middle East. The target was launched from the Marshall Islands in the Pacific and the interceptor missile from California.
The US is speeding up the deployment of defences in the Gulf to counter what is seen as the growing threat from Iran's short- and medium-range missiles. The Pentagon said those two components performed as expected, but the sea-based X-band radar system failed.
This includes deploying ships off the Iranian coast and Patriot anti-missile systems in several Gulf countries. The system has been under development for many years at the cost of tens of billions of dollars, and the Pentagon will be embarrassed by the failure, says the BBC security correspondent Nick Childs.
In the exercise on Sunday, a target missile was fired from Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands, and the interceptor from Vandenberg Air Force base in California. In the exercise on Sunday, a target missile was fired from Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands, and the interceptor from Vandenberg Air Force base in California, the Missile Defense Agency said.
The Sea-Based X-band radar did not perform as expected Missile Defense Agency The target represented "the type of technology that a country such as North Korea or Iran might be able to develop in the future that would threaten the United States," Mr Lehner told the French news agency, AFP.
Both had performed normally, the Missile Defense Agency said. The test came as the Pentagon released a report warning that Iran and North Korea's intermediate and shorter-range missiles posed regional threats to US forces and their allies.
"However, the Sea-Based X-band radar did not perform as expected," the agency said on its website. Last week, the US said it was speeding up the deployment of ships off the Iranian coast and Patriot anti-missile systems in several Gulf countries to counter what it sees as a growing Iranian threat.
Officials would investigate the cause of the failed $150m (£94m) test, it said. An investigation would be conducted into the cause of the test failure, US officials said.
Previous US missile defence tests have imitated an attack from North Korea, but this was the first time a flight path from Iran was used.
It comes as the impasse over Tehran's nuclear activities continues and the US steps up its deployment of anti-missile capabilities in the Gulf.
However, correspondents say the moves are more of a defensive manoeuvre against Iran than an aggressive one.