The photograph that Michael Dudikoff's character picks up and stare at along with Steve James, is actually a previous production still from American Ninja (1985), another Golan-Globus Production from Cannon films.
Originally written as a sequel to Invasion U.S.A. (1985) with Chuck Norris returning to the role of Matt Hunter. When he was uninterested, the role was rewritten to be younger and given to rising Cannon star Michael Dudikoff instead. Despite sharing the same main character name, the finished film was no longer intended to be a sequel or prequel to the earlier film, but it's own stand-alone movie.
This movie was released in Israel as "The American Ninja 2", a fact which caused "American Ninja 2" to released as "American Ninja 3" and so on. In fact, in Israel there are 6 movies in the "American Ninja" series.
A different truck is used for the jump stunts (on the draw bridge and the junk yard). Most obviously it has only one pair of headlights and a large "4x4" sign on the radiator.