U.S. Tries to Intensify War With Stinger Missiles, Afghanistan Says
Afghanistan accused the United States on Tuesday of trying to intensify the country’s guerrilla war by its reported decision to send advanced Stinger anti-aircraft missiles to Afghan rebels.
The charge was made in a commentary by the official Bakhtar news agency broadcast by the state-run Kabul radio, which was monitored here.
The Reagan Administration, in a key policy change, has decided to send U.S.-made, shoulder-fired Stinger missiles to anti-government guerrillas in Angola and Afghanistan, congressional and private sources said in Washington.
The Afghan news agency said the missiles will be sent to Afghan “counterrevolutionaries” through Pakistan, which it said has been converted into “a base for the undeclared war against . . . Afghanistan.”
The agency said the decision shows that “Washington wants to continue and intensify this war,” and it warned Pakistan that it would be responsible for the consequences of “such an adventure.”
Pakistan denies helping the Afghan rebels fighting the Soviet-backed government in Kabul and also says it will not become a conduit for arms supplies to them.
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