US and Israeli troops launch month-long joint drill simulating missile attack

If war breaks out in the Middle East, US and Israeli forces are preparing to one day fight alongside one another to defend Israel against missile attacks from across the region.

Nearly 5,000 Israeli and American troops have been training together in Israel for that very scenario. The “Juniper Cobra” exercise includes field training, computer simulations and live-fire drills of sophisticated missile-defence systems.

“We will practice, train shoulder to shoulder, the same as we will fight in crisis times,” Brig. General Zvika Haimovich, chief of Israel’s air defence command, told reporters at a briefing at the dusty Hatzor airbase in southern Israel.

Haimovich said Juniper Cobra is not aimed at any particular adversary. Instead, it is meant to simulate “very complex scenarios” that include simultaneous attacks from enemy countries and militant groups.

“We practise that because this is a real scenario,” he said. The threats include multiple salvoes, more accurate rockets and missiles and a “multidirectional threat.”

“Those are our main assumptions,” he said. “It doesn’t matter if it’s from south, north, east or others.”