US Equips Israel With Patriot Missile Batteries

The US has sent Patriot air-defence batteries and 600 soldiers to Israel to help protect it against missile attack in the event of a war with Iraq, in a move aimed at keeping the Sharon government out of the conflict.

According to the Pentagon, the Patriot anti-missile system is being deployed in Israel as part of a military exercise to test it in tandem with Israel's own Arrow anti-missile system, to ensure that neither targets the other in the event of an Iraqi attack.

However, a Pentagon spokesman acknowledged that the Patriot batteries could remain in Israel after the exercise ends in mid-February.

The Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, has insisted that his country has the right to respond if it comes under attack from Iraqi Scud missiles, but the administration hopes Israel can be kept out of the fight if the incoming Scuds can be knocked out of the sky.

The Patriot system has been improved since the 1991 Gulf war when it was deployed in Israel and around the Gulf but failed to intercept almost all the Scud missiles launched by Baghdad. The new system has yet to be battle tested.

Iraq fired 39 Scud missiles at Israel in 1991, but none was armed with chemical or biological weapons and Israel was persuaded to show restraint. Both in 1991 and now, Washington is anxious that Israeli intervention in an Iraqi war could turn it into an Arab-Jewish conflict.

The US navy also sent an air-defence cruiser equipped with a radar that can track incoming missiles across a wide area.

According to the New York Times, the US has also asked Nato to provide Patriot batteries for Turkey, another regional ally nervous over the prospect of a new Iraqi war.

Italian customs have meanwhile seized a huge cargo of a chemical which can be used to make weapons of mass destruction as it was leaving the port of Genoa for Libya, according to investigating judges yesterday.

The highly flammable cargo of more than 40 tonnes of morpholine was found in three freight containers leaving for Bengazi, on Libya's north African coast, on December 18, judges told journalists in Genoa.

The chemical, which is blacklisted by the UN as a key component for weapons of mass destruction, was routed to Libya but its final destination may have been Iraq or other "rogue states", according to a report in the Italian daily La Repubblica. The chemical could be used to make large quantities of lethal mustard gas, the report said.

The chemicals were produced in Germany and shipped by an unnamed Brussels-based company from Antwerp to Naples and then on to Genoa, one of the largest industrial ports in the Mediterranean, which handles more than 70,000 containers a month.

Morpholine, used in industrial solvents, cleaning fluid and pesticides, can be exported legally between European countries. But a permit is required when it is exported to countries considered "high risk". Prosecuting judges said the confiscated cargo had no permit and that they had received no complaint from the Belgian-based company since its property was seized.

The Libyan and Belgian embassies in Rome were unable to comment on the haul and Italian police in Genoa refused to give further details.