RAMON AIR BASE, Feb 19: The Israeli air force on Thursday took delivery of the first two of more than 100 US-built F-16I jets, a new generation of warplane which will soon make up the backbone of Israel's fleet.

Experts say the ultra-sophisticated development of the battle-tested F16 Fighting Falcon, to be named Sufa (storm in Hebrew), sports a much-increased range of 1,500 kilometres, allowing them to reach anywhere in the Middle East without needing in-flight refuelling.

Media reports said this new capability could allow the Israeli Air Force (IAF) to hit suspected nuclear targets in Iran, as it did in Iraq in June 1981 when it bombed the Osirak reactor near Baghdad.

Built by US aerospace giant Lockheed Martin, the two planes left the contractor's plant in Fort Worth, Texas late Wednesday and set down at the Ramon air base in the southern Negev desert on Thursday afternoon after a stop-over in Portugal's mid-Atlantic Azores islands. -AFP