Morocco in talks with Israel to buy air defence system – Middle East Monitor

Morocco is at the moment in talks with Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) to buy the Barak-8 Missile air defence system, the Hebrew language Israel Protection revealed on Tuesday.

The Barak-8 surface-to-air missile system was collectively developed by Israel and India and may be launched from sea or land, and it protects delicate targets towards numerous aerial threats over a radius of 150 kilometers.

Israel Protection reported that Colonel Sharon Bitton, IAI’s advertising and marketing director for the Gulf international locations, is finishing up the negotiations with Morocco.

The talks on this difficulty started throughout the go to of Israeli Defence Minister Benny Gantz to Morocco on 23 November, Israeli media reported.

Throughout Gantz’s go to to Rabat, he signed with Morocco a number of navy agreements to strengthen safety cooperation.

READ: Morocco, Israel to construct 2 drone factories

The agreements are associated to the event of a undertaking to “manufacture” Israeli drones in Morocco, with latest stories that the 2 international locations intend to cooperate within the manufacturing of Kamikaze drones.

In November, the Israeli information outlet Globes reported {that a} contract had been concluded between the Israeli agency Skylock Programs to produce Morocco with the Skylock Dome anti-drone system which detects, verifies and neutralises drones.

Within the wake of Gantz’s go to, Rabat additionally ordered a batch of Israeli drones, the Harop sort, also called unmanned plane Kamikaze, from IAI. The drones’ contract worth is round $22m.

Lately, Morocco has acquired a number of items of navy tools to strengthen its Royal Armed Forces’ (FAR) operational capabilities amid rising regional tensions and to fight extremist or rebel teams within the Western Sahara.