Photo : YONHAP News
The United Arab Emirates(UAE) has sent multiple transport planes to South Korea to pick up parts of the Cheongung-II interceptor missile system amid the protracted Iran war.
According to sources in the South Korean military and the defense industry Friday, the UAE began sending eight C-17 transport aircraft earlier this week to an air base in Daegu for the successive transfer of batches of the Cheongung-II missile system and interceptor missiles.
The assets are likely being transported by air, rather than by sea, after Iran’s effective shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz.
The same type of transport aircraft from the UAE was detected at the Daegu air base in March to airlift earlier batches of the Cheongung system, just after the outbreak of the U.S.-Iran war in late February.
The Cheongung, often dubbed the South Korean version of the U.S. Patriot missile defense system, is a midrange surface-to-air guided missile system capable of intercepting missiles at altitudes below 40 kilometers.
In 2022, the UAE signed a three-point-five-billion-dollar contract with LIG Nex1, Hanwha Systems and Hanwha Aerospace to acquire ten Cheongung batteries.