Air Defense Commander Reveals Details of a Deal to Purchase a Medium-Range Surface-to-Air Missile System

Air Defense Commander, Major General Pilot Muhannad Ghaleb Al-Asadi, revealed today, Thursday, the details of a deal to purchase a medium-range surface-to-air missile system from South Korea, while specifying the date of the arrival of the first missile batteries to the country. Major General Al-Asadi told the official News Agency: "The recently contracted medium-range surface-to-air missile system (M-SAM) is considered very advanced, as Iraq has reached an agreement based on the directives of the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, Muhammad Shia Al-Sudani, with the Korean company Elaji and the government of the Republic of South Korea to purchase a number of them to protect Iraqi airspace," indicating that "these batteries are scheduled to arrive in Iraq successively over the coming years." He added that "the financing of these systems will be in batches, as they will provide the Air Defense Command with high capabilities due to their importance in supporting national sovereignty and protecting the air space from any aggression." He explained that "there are high-level understandings between the Ministry of Defense and its South Korean counterpart in this direction," explaining that "next year the first missile battery will arrive to begin training Iraqi combat and technical cadres as engineers and technicians on it in the fourth or sixth month of next year in the Republic of South Korea in the manufacturing company." He stressed that "the cadre specialized in these batteries will be Iraqi, meaning that the use of the filling and the tactical use of the batteries and the engineering cadre is Iraqi technician," noting that "their training period lasts from 4-8 months according to each specialty." He pointed out that "this is the first time that a battery system has arrived in Iraq ready to enter the theater of operations and defend Iraq and its airspace." Source: National Iraqi News Agency