Colombia Fighter Deal With Israel Includes Tanker
TEL AVIV, Israel - The December deal that will send 24 upgraded Kfir multirole fighters from Israel to Colombia has a second, secret part: an aerial refueling tanker to support the jets, according to defense and diplomatic sources here.
The $200 million deal to upgrade the Kfirs' avionics and structures was confirmed during an early February visit here by Colombian Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos.
But neither Israeli nor Colombian officials agreed to speak publicly on the estimated $60 million sale of a Boeing 767 to be converted by state-owned Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI).
The sources said Bogota aims to boost its aerial strike capabilities and strategic standing in a region increasingly dominated by Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez and allied leftist leaders in Bolivia, Ecuador and Cuba.
Santos told reporters in February that work on the planes - taken from IAF excess inventory - had already begun, and that Colombia expected first deliveries to begin early next year.
But no one would talk on the record about the tanker purchase, which will greatly extend the reach of the Colombian Air Force, nor even about burgeoning bilateral defense trade, which last year exceeded $300 million in new orders.
Talk of Colombian-Israeli military ties, always sensitive, grew particularly quiet after the Colombian Air Force hit an insurgent camp across the border in Ecuador on March 2. More than a dozen rebels from the FARC terrorist organization were killed in the strike, which used Israeli precision missiles and targeting gear.
In response, Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa recalled his ambassador in Bogota. An outraged Chavez shut down his country's embassy in the Colombian capital and deployed tanks and troops along his western border.
Alternately denouncing Colombia as a vassal state in the U.S. empire and "the Israel of Latin America," Chavez stopped short of declaring war on Bogota.
"We don't want war, but we aren't going to permit the U.S. empire, which is the master [of Colombia]... to come divide us," Chavez was quoted by the Associated Press as saying in his weekly broadcast from Caracas.
U.S. Export Approval
Contracts for the Kfirs and the airborne tanker required Washington to grant export licenses for the American J79 turbojet engine powering the Kfir and the U.S.-built 767 airframe housing the aerial refueling system.
"Everything was done by the book, with full coordination and authorization by the U.S. authorities," an Israeli official said.
According to government and industry sources here, both contracts were signed at the end of 2007, involve participation of multiple Israeli defense firms, and will be managed by prime contractor IAI.
IAI's Lahav Division will lead work on the Kfir upgrade program while the firm's Bedek Division will be responsible for converting the Boeing passenger jet into an airborne tanker.
Sources here said the estimated $60 million sole-source tanker contract will be implemented under a government-to-government agreement that holds Tel Aviv responsible for all work provided by IAI.
Colombia already operates IAI-upgraded Kfir fighter bombers equipped with Python air-to-air missile and other Israeli-developed subsystems delivered in the late 1980s as part of an estimated $200 million, 14-aircraft modernization package. Similarly, its older-model Mirage aircraft have been upgraded with Kfir-related technologies, including fire-control radars, navigation and targeting systems, weaponry and in-flight refueling capabilities.
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