U.S. military forces spent last week learning how to deal with radical Islamic terrorism from the experience of their Israeli counterparts.
Israeli Defense Forces and members of the U.S. Marine Corps joined together for a live-fire training exercise in southern Israel to improve collaboration and interoperability between their two forces.
The Marines’ Battalion Landing Team, 6th Marine Regiment and 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit trained last week with Israeli ground troops, air and naval forces on urban warfare and counter terror techniques, Israel’s Channel 2 television news reported.
The scenarios in the exercise included various tactical formations such as drilled helicopter landings behind enemy lines, simulated extractions under fire – including by combat medics – as well as a scenario in which Israel was subjected to a barrage of Iranian and Hezbollah missiles.
The latter was used to test real-time integration of Israeli and American missile defense systems, with the Israelis employing American radar systems deployed across the Middle East in addition to a satellite alert system that picks up missile launches from around the planet.
The Israeli ‘David’s Sling’ missile defense system (which targets medium to long-range missiles) was also used during the drill although it is not yet fully operational.