The US military has conducted a successful test of its ballistic missile defence system planned for deployment to Eastern Europe, a spokesperson said.

The target missile was launched from Alaska’s Kodiak Island at 4 pm on Friday and was struck in space 24 minutes later by an interceptor missile fired from the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, said Richard Lehner, a spokesperson for the Pentagon’s Missile Defence Agency.

Radar site
The US plans to install a radar site in the Czech Republic and 10 interceptor missiles in Poland by 2 013 have sparked a major rift in the US-Russian relations and prompted Moscow to warn, it could target sites in Eastern Europe.

The US maintains the base will be for countering Iran’s growing ballistic missile capability and is not a threat to Russia’s ballistic missile fleet.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defence Secretary Robert Gates plan to meet their Russian counterparts in the coming weeks in an attempt to defuse the tension over the missile defence plans.
Critics have been sceptical of Pentagon claims of successful tests, but the Missile Defence Agency contends they take place under as realistic scenarios as possible.