ABU DHABI: The United Arab Emirates is planning to upgrade its missile defense systems and integrate them regionally with other Gulf Arab states to shore up its defenses, top military officials said Sunday. Three dozen countries possessed ballistic missiles half of whom were in Asia or the Middle East, Maj. Gen. Mohammed Suhaih Al Kaabi, Deputy Chief of Staff of the UAE Armed Forces, said at a military conference. “The threat of attack of long-range ballistic missiles is real. We must be prepared to defend our people, nation and region against any threat,” he said. “There is a high concentration of theater ballistic missiles ... (in the region) ... that can cause significant damage,” Brig. Gen. Mohammed Murad Al-Baloushi, commander of UAE Air Force and Air Defense Operation Center, said. He said the UAE, therefore, needed to equip itself with the latest missile systems. The UAE was in the advanced stages of procuring and upgrading its Patriot missiles and theater ballistic missile weaponry, he said without elaborating. It is also building up a sophisticated missile defense system and operating a Center for Integrated Air and Missile Defense. The Gulf state is expected to buy the THAAD (Theater High Altitude Area Defense) missile system made by Lockheed Martin Corp. That deal may come in early 2011, a defense source told Reuters Sunday. “Other Gulf states are also thinking about THAAD,” the source said. He declined to be named as the deal is not yet signed.
