Hourly Update

Raytheon-made shell kills al-Qaeda leader, U.S. says

WASHINGTON - A Raytheon Co. satellite-guided artillery shell, the first weapon of its kind, killed a top al- Qaeda leader in Iraq, the U.S. military said. The firing of two new 155mm “Excalibur” shells was part of a combined Army and Air Force assault July 14 on a meeting house in Arab Jabour south of Baghdad directed against the leader, Abu Jurah, and 14 associates, U.S. forces said today. Raytheon, the world’s biggest missile maker and Southern Arizona’s largest employer, developed the Excalibur with Bofors Defence of Sweden. The statement e-mailed from Baghdad said Abu Jurah was “the top target” in al-Qaeda south of Baghdad, responsible for a terrorist cell that made improvised roadside bombs and suicide vehicle bombs and fired mortars at U.S. troops. The attack marked the U.S. military’s first acknowledgement that the new precision-guided weapon has been used in Iraq. In combat testing before deployment, the weapon demonstrated accuracy within 20 feet (6 meters) of its target, a precision designed to minimize civilian casualties and accidental U.S. military deaths in a war that is increasingly urban. An unguided 155mm shell can miss its target by as much as 900 feet or 280 meters. The Excalibur has a 50-pound warhead. The Army wanted a weapon with a much smaller warhead than the 200- pound charge on its only precision guided ground-based mobile rocket system, officials said. Abu Jurah was killed by troops from the Army’s 1st Battalion, 9th Field Artillery Regiment, who fired the two Excalibur shells, destroying the meeting house, the statement said. For Waltham, Massachusetts-based Raytheon, successful combat use is a milestone in a $1.4 billion program for up to 30,000 shells costing about $39,000 apiece. Raytheon is under contract to make the first 500 rounds. The Army program office at Picatinny Arsenal, New Jersey, says Raytheon will produce at least the first 3,000 shells and could compete to make the remaining 27,000. The Excalibur is guided to its target by Global Positioning System satellites.