This year’s event served as a dress rehearsal for a joint response to anl Iranian missile attack on Israel.

Contingency plans could be activated at any moment, with U.S. forces arriving in Israel from Europe, officers from both countries explained.

“It depends on the scenario at some point, but we will have fighting forces moving within 72 hours,” Lt. Gen. Richard Clark, commander of 3rd Air Force, told reporters here. “We can phase in our forces as required, but almost immediately, we can start moving forces.”

The biennial air defense drill aims to hone the ability of both nations to operate as a joint task force against an attack.

Given the growing and evermore direct involvement of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps beyond Israel’s border with Syria, this year’s Juniper Cobra ― the ninth held here since 2001 ― simulates a clash that is becoming less hypothetical.

“For us, we call it a dress rehearsal because we understand that this can happen, and [the joint task force] can be activated at any moment,” Lt. Col. Tal Kaduri, head of cooperation for the Israel Air Defense Force, told Defense News, a sister publication.

According to Kaduri, who has played an active role in planning multiple Juniper Cobra drills, scenarios driven by the Iranian threat are increasingly relevant.

“It’s not just Iran’s involvement in Syria, but everywhere,” he said. “We understand Iran has its arms spread around a lot of places in the Middle East, and we can safely say that’s our main threat.”

The main goal of Juniper Cobra 2018, Kaduri said, “is to see how both forces can answer the evolving threats that Iran is posing.”

To that end, the two allies have put in place Joint Task Force-Israel to plan and command thousands of interoperable land- and sea-based forces, all training in common doctrine, language and rules of engagement.

Training has included computer-assisted simulations ranging from rocket threats to crisis resupply, foreign disaster response and foreign humanitarian assistance, according to the Defense Department.

The goal is to give the U.S. military and IDF an opportunity to work together and learn from each other, according to U.S. Air Forces Europe.

More than 2,100 of the U.S. troops were deployed to various locations across Israel for this iteration. Most will depart after Juniper Cobra ends, but some U.S. personnel will remain in Israel for additional training opportunities.

Along with Air Force personnel, the U.S. sent the amphibious assault ship Iwo Jima with its embarked 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit. They didn’t participate directly in the ballistic missile defense portion of the exercise, but they participated in bilateral training with the IDF, according to the Navy.

The command ship Mount Whitney and guided-missile destroyer Carney also participated, the Navy said.

The Army’s 10th Army Air and Missile Defense Command took part, along with EUCOM components.

U.S. Air Force Col. Justin Hickman, chief of staff of JTF-Israel, said the two countries have honed tactics, techniques and procedures to a point of very rapid interoperability.

The JTF format “allows us to bring our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines together to train that way. It’s in our doctrine,” he said. “Especially given the immediacy of the threat in Israel … we welcome the opportunity to work together in a challenging training environment. …

“Those relationships you have to build up over time,” Hickman said. “You can’t just get here and expect to work together effectively. That’s why we have these exercises every two years, with routine conferences and meetings in between.”

Although the number of U.S. forces on the ground in this year’s Juniper Cobra was down slightly from previous years, Kaduri insisted that it didn’t indicate lower priority, but rather improved interoperability mastered by both sides.

“It’s not only the forces physically deployed here in Israel, but forces stationed in the [U.S. European Command] arena in Germany. We connect via communication lines and other methods of interoperability,” he said. “So the fact that you’re not seeing them on the ground here doesn’t mean they aren’t here. The mission is much, much bigger, with a larger network of participants, even though they’re not physically here.”

Hickman noted that it’s not only Israel that benefits from the joint training and contingency planning.

“We benefit from bringing the soldiers here for realistic training, improved mobility and the lessons we learn from working with our Israeli partners,” he said. “They have the Arrow, David’s Sling, Iron Dome. We have Patriot, THAAD and Aegis. It’s amazing technology, and we all gain from interoperability.”

Reporter Charlsy Panzino contributed to this article.

TEL AVIV, Israel — U.S. and Israeli officers broke ground in Israel on Monday for a permanent U.S. Army base that will house dozens of U.S. soldiers, operating under the American flag, and charged with the mission of defending against rocket and missile attack.

The American base, officers in Israel say, will be an independent facility co-located at the Israel Defense Forces Air Defense School in southern Israel, near the desert capital of Beersheba. Once completed, the base will house U.S. operational systems to identify and intercept a spectrum of aerial threats, along with barracks, recreational and other facilities required to support several dozen American air defenders.

“A few dozens of soldiers of our American allies will be stationed here permanently. They are part of an American task force that will be stationed here,” said Israeli Air Force Brig. Gen. Zvika Haimovich, the IDF‘s air defense commander.

According to Haimovich, the co-located, permanent U.S. presence will enhance Israel’s ability to detect and defend against the growing rocket and missile threat. “The purpose of their presence is not for training or for exercises, but rather as part of a joint Israeli and American effort to sustain and enhance our defensive capabilities.”

Maj. Gen. John Gronski, deputy commanding general of the Army National Guard in U.S. Army Europe, led the U.S. delegation participating in Sept. 18 ceremonies.

Referring to the site as Site 883 Life Support Area, Gronski said the planned base “signifies the strong bond” that exists between the United States and Israel.

“This life support area represents the first ever stationing of a U.S. Army unit on Israeli soil,” he said. “The U.S. and Israel have long planned together, exercised together, trained together. And now, with the opening of this site, these crucial interactions will occur every day. We’ll have Israeli airmen, US soldiers living and working side by side.”

While the new U.S. base marks the first to be co-located within an Israeli base and the first in which active interceptors are to be deployed, the U.S. military has operated an independent facility for nearly a decade in the same general area of Israel’s Negev desert. That facility — which is operated only by Americans without an Israeli presence — houses the U.S. AN/TPY-2, an X-Band radar that is integrated with Israeli search and track radars to augment early warning in the event of ballistic missile attack from Iran.

In his briefing to reporters, Haimovich said the IDF has been working with its U.S. counterparts for nearly two years to establish the new facility. He emphasized that the American presence “would not hamper the IDF‘s ability to act independently against any threat to the security of the State of Israel.”

He also noted that in recent weeks, the IDFs Air Defense Command stood up a new Iron Dome battalion to enable the Jewish state to more equitably deploy active defenses along its northern as well as southern borders, where Israel faces growing threats from Lebanon and Gaza, respectively.

One of Israel’s operational Iron Dome systems is now in the U.S., where it is competing with U.S.-proposed systems for an interim — and possibly longer-term — solution to the medium- and short-range air defense requirement.

“If your children tonight ask if we’re safe from North Korea, I will tell you we have the strongest defense possible against the threat right now, today. What we’re really concerned about is downstream as the threat becomes more complex,” said Rear Adm. Jon Hill, deputy director of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency.

Speaking just four days after Pyongyang’s sixth nuclear detonation and against the backdrop of the dozens of North Koran ballistic missile tests conducted in the past two years, Hill said additional funding is required to render active defenses more robust to meet future threats.

“We’re focused on threats to our nation and to our allies and constantly performing threat projections. We have the programs and initiatives in place to keep pace and stay ahead of the threats. But much depends on public investment,” Hill said.

But, he added, “such projections and programs can be difficult if you don’t have the resources.”

To that end, Hill said MDA has three top priorities. Firstly, it aims to enhance the reliability of existing systems, build the confidence of war fighters and work to reduce the number of missiles needed to intercept threats.

Secondly, he said, MDA is working to augment capability and capacity of existing systems through additional sensors and interceptors. “We need to continue to build out the sensor architecture. If you can’t see it, you can’t shoot it. … So we need to upgrade global missile defense capabilities and then the numbers of interceptors.”

Thirdly, the MDA deputy said, the organization was working with industry and international partners to develop new means of detecting and intercepting much more advanced, future threats that are likely to involve decoys, separation warheads and saturation attacks. Key focal points for development, he said, include directed energy, which Hill characterized as a “game-changer.”

Other developmental priorities include space-based and other sensors, and the means for linking disparate “sensors and shooters” deployed by the different service branches and allied nations.

“If you want a layered and effective defense against what is pretty much a 360-degree threat, you have to go in there and engineer to make sure your sensors are tracking. If you’re limited to terrestrial or ship-based radars, you need to make sure they are handing [data] over from one radar to the next and to other missiles. Once you do that, and harness capabilities of all the services, the power will be enormous,” Hill said.

Maj. Gen. Rupert Jones, deputy commander of the Combined Joint Task Force for Operation Inherent Resolve, noted that throughout the battle for Mosul, Iraq, and up until last week, the Popular Mobilization Forces, or PMF, were not deployed as an integral part of those Iraqi security forces directly supported by coalition operations. But with the Aug. 20 launch of the offensive on Tal Afar, the PMF is operating in the same sector alongside three Iraqi divisions, Iraq’s counterterrorism service, police units and the country’s emergency response division to liberate Tal Afar and the remainder of Nineveh province from ISIS.

“They’re all under the command of Prime Minister [Haider al]-Abadi. They’ve made a positive start, but we expect it to be a tough fight. And as always, the coalition will be there to support,” Jones told Pentagon reporters.

Estimated at some 20,000 fighters, the PMF was formally enshrined in a law signed late last year as part of the Iraqi security forces under the command of Abadi. It includes brigades of Iranian-backed Hezbollah and embedded operatives of the Quds force, the elite unit of Tehran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.

At a meeting with Abadi in Tehran last June, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei hailed the PMF as an “important and blessed phenomenon.” Conversely, Israeli leaders have assailed the force as a manifestation of Iran’s strategy to establish a land corridor that extends from the Arabian Gulf through Iraq and Syria and then onto Lebanon’s coast along the Mediterranean Sea.

In his Pentagon briefing, Jones noted that throughout the battle for Mosul, the PMF operated far west of the city under orders from Abadi. Today, he said, PMF fighters remain on the outskirts of Mosul, although he conceded that “elements may have slipped into the city … but you won’t find areas of the city held by the PMF.”

As for the battle for Tal Afar, which had been held by the PMF prior to the coalition-supported offensive, Jones insisted that U.S.-led support is indirect, yet inevitable due to what he called the congested battle space. “The Iraqi government made the decision that the PMF is to be integrated with elements of the Iraqi security forces. … So any support that we might provide to the PMF will be incidental to the fact that we are directly supporting the Iraqi Army, the counterterrorism force, the police and the like,” he said.

When asked about what specific types of support may indirectly benefit the PMF, Jones replied: “By ‘support’ I mean if you conduct an airstrike or a ground artillery fires in support of the federal police, and the PMF are operating on that same axis, they are going to get incremental support from it. Because without it, the Iraqi police can’t advance, nor can the PMF. … It’s always impossible to make a complete distinction in a congested battle space.”

The coalition commander noted that the Iraqi prime minister has used both the words “disciplined” and “nondisciplined” to describe the PMF, and warned against painting the entire PMF with a negative, Iranian-linked brush.

“There’s a risk in using a kind of blanket description of the PMF which creates a negative connotation. The PMF are now part of the Iraqi security forces. And forces which are moderate in their intent and forces that comply with the orders of Prime Minister Abadi rather than somebody else’s instructions are potentially a positive influence,” Jones said.

“We are here as a military coalition to support our partner forces in defeating [ISIS]. Not to do anything else,” he added. ”There are other forces and influences at play, but that is not part of the operation and not what our mission is about.”

Behnam Ben Taleblu, a senior Iran analyst for the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said incorporating the PMF into Iraq’s institutions of state security may ultimately threaten Iraqi sovereignty once ISIS is defeated militarily. “Iraqi sovereignty, I’m afraid, is like Swiss cheese, with a lot of the holes filled by Iranian influence.”

He insisted that U.S. policy and policy of other major coalition partners should be based on the political future of Iraq, after ISIS is defeated militarily. “We all should be wary of history repeating itself, where we win the battle militarily, yet lose it politically by allowing Iran to step in and fill the vacuum.”

When asked if the U.S.-backed coalition would be working directly with the PMF on so-called stabilization operations after the fighting is over, Jones deferred to political leaders in world capitals. “Do we have any freedoms at the moment to conduct that type of coordination? Absolutely not. And as a military man, I’d frankly be surprised if we received those sorts of instruction.”

Perhaps even more interesting, according to ISI, is progress taking place on Yulin’s eastern side. “We’re seeing the building of infrastructure that wasn’t there before and what looks like preparations for shore-to-ship missiles, just like on the western side,” company spokesman Gil Or said.

Photo Credit: ImageSat International

Photo Credit: ImageSat International

Gur noted that expansion of the Yulin base fortifies Beijing’s strategic triangle of forward bases with which to quickly project its power well beyond neighboring Vietnam and the Philippines.

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The upgraded A-50, a Russian special mission aircraft, were captured by ImageSat International deployed at the Latakia Air Base in Syria.

Photo Credit: ImageSat International

Just a week ago, Sergei Rudskoy, head of the Russian General Staff Operations Directorate, announced that Moscow had deployed a “multi-level control system” capable of detecting hostile threats in the Syrian  airspace.

Produced by the Beriev Aircraft Company, upgraded A-50U versions of the aircraft are designed to detect airborne threats from 650 kilometers away and ground targets at 300 kilometers. The aircraft uniquely serves as a command post where it can control nearly a dozen fighters while defending against ground targets and surface ships.

Online reporting from Russia cited initial A-50 deployment in late 2015, but the aircraft returned to home bases as part of partial drawdown announced by President Vladimir Putin in March 2016.