Washington/Tel Aviv - The United States has transferred to Israel a high-powered radar system that will improve Israel's reaction time to a possible Iranian missile strike, the Defense News magazine reported over the weekend.

Quoting US and German sources, the magazine said that more than one dozen aircraft transferred the X-band radar system and some 120 supporting personnel and equipment to Israel on September 21.

The high-powered, high-frequency system is designed to detect and track ballistic missiles soon after launch and can track an object the size of a baseball from 4,700 kilometres away.

According to the Jerusalem Post daily, the system will allow Israel's Arrow missile to engage an Iranian Shahab-3 ballistic missile about halfway through what would be an 
11-minute flight from Iran, or six times sooner than Israel's "Green Pine" radar can.

The decision to deploy the radar in Israel was finalized during a recent visit to the US by Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak.

An Israeli military spokeswoman refused to comment directly on the report, and said only that Israel has for years enjoyed strategic cooperation with the US Army, and this is expressed through various means and channels as a matter of routine.

Israel regards Iran as its main existential threat, given Tehran's nuclear ambitions and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahamdinejad's statements that the Jewish state should be erased from the map. (dpa)