The U.S military has relocated its Typhon launchers, which can hurl multipurpose missiles over thousands of kilometers, from the Philippines’ Laoag airbase to another place on the island of Luzon, according to a senior Philippine government source.
The launchers’ Tomahawk cruise missiles can hit targets in China and Russia from the Philippines, while the SM-6 missiles it also carries can strike air or sea targets more than 200 kilometers distant.
According to a senior Philippine government official, the redeployment would help identify where and how quickly the missile battery may be relocated to a new firing location.
Mobility is viewed as a means of increasing their chances of survival during a battle.
According to Mr Jeffrey Lewis of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, satellite photographs show the batteries and associated gear being loaded onto C-17 transport planes at Laoag International Airport in recent weeks.
The white rain canopies that had covered the Typhon equipment were also removed, according to Reuters photographs that had not previously been disclosed.
The Typhon system is part of a U.S drive to amass a variety of anti-ship weapons in Asia.
Both Indopacom and the Philippine government declined to give the specific location to which the batteries were moved.
“The US government has coordinated closely with the Philippine government on every aspect of the MRC deployment, including the location,” said Commander Matthew Comer of Indopacom, referring to the Typhon by the initials of its formal name, Mid Range Capability.
He added that the relocation was not an indication that the batteries would be permanently in the Philippines.
The weapon drew sharp criticism from China when it was first deployed in April 2024 during a training exercise.
In September, when the United States said it had no immediate plans to pull the Typhons out of the Philippines, China and Russia condemned the deployment as fuelling an arms race.
Typhons are extremely simple to manufacture, drawing on massive stockpiles and designs that have been around for a decade or more, and may allow the United States and its allies catch up rapidly in an Indo-Pacific missile race in which China has a significant advantage.
Although the U.S military has reluctant to indicate how many will be deployed in the Indo-Pacific region, more than 800 SM-6 missiles are expected to be purchased over the next five years, according to federal papers documenting military procurement.
The documents suggested that several thousand Tomahawks were already in US stockpiles.
