Belgium and the Netherlands team up to buy guided bombs

Belgium and the Netherlands, together with a number of other NATO countries, are planning to pool their resources to jointly purchase precision-guided munition, writes Het Laatste Nieuws. Defence minister Steven Vandeput and his Dutch counterpart Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert finalized the agreement yesterday in Brussels.

With Denmark in the lead, Belgium and the Netherlands join Czech Republic, Norway, Spain, Portugal and Greece in the purchase. The laser- and GPS-guided bombs are widely used in air operations, such as those currently carried out by Belgian F-16s in Iraq.

"Precision-guided bombs are one of the critical areas within NATO," Vandeput said on Thursday during the signing of the initiative at NATO headquarters. The initiative is part of NATO's Smart Defence programme, a concept focussed on the pooling and sharing of Allied resources.