Patriot | Pakistan

The Swiss government is considering dropping the agreed purchase of the Patriot air-defence system from the United States amid severe delivery delays, Defence Minister Martin Pfister said on Wednesday. “Cancellation is always an option in the event of a delay,” he told the ATS-Keystone news agency. Earlier on Wednesday, the defence ministry announced it would continue suspending payments for the system “until the United States has firmly announced new delivery dates and payment deadlines”. Switzerland, which is not in Nato, had ordered five Patriot systems in 2022, with delivery scheduled to begin this year and to be completed in 2028. But last July, the government said it had been informed by the US defence department that the deliveries to Switzerland would be delayed as Washington strived to provide more support for Ukraine. Switzerland first suspended its payments for the system last autumn. “We are still operating on the assumption that we will receive the delivery, but we don’t know when,” Pfister said,...

An American-operated Patriot air defence battery likely fired the interceptor missile involved in a pre-dawn explosion that injured dozens of civilians and tore through homes in US-ally Bahrain 10 days into the war on Iran, according to an analysis by academic researchers examined by Reuters. Both Bahrain and Washington have blamed an Iranian drone attack for the March 9 blast, which the Gulf kingdom said injured 32 people including children, some seriously. Commenting on the day of the attack, US Central Command said on X that an Iranian drone struck a residential neighbourhood in Bahrain. In response to questions from Reuters, Bahrain on Saturday acknowledged for the first time that a Patriot missile was involved in the explosion over the Mahazza neighbourhood on Sitra island, offshore from the capital Manama and also home to an oil refinery. In a statement, a Bahraini government spokesperson said the missile successfully intercepted an Iranian drone mid-air, saving lives. The damage and injuries sustained ...