Afghans Have U.S. Stinger Missiles, Soviet Confirms

MOSCOW — A Soviet general confirmed today that U.S. Stinger missiles are now being used against his forces in Afghanistan and said an MI-8 troop-carrying helicopter was hit last month.

“At the end of November we have registered the first use of the American Stinger missile,” Lt. Gen. Mikhail Sotskov told a news conference.

“It was used against an MI-8 helicopter that was on its regular course,” he said. “The rocket hit the ammunition supply and exploded there. We counted more than 50 holes in the helicopter, but it managed to land safely.

“We found the tail of the missile with the markings, and technically speaking its dimensions show that this was a Stinger missile,” Sotskov said.

Before introduction of Stinger missiles in Afghanistan, the Muslim resistance fighters anti-aircraft weaponry had been confined to comparatively ineffective machine-gun fire and older missiles manufactured in China and Britain.

The rebels claimed recently, however, that they were now receiving Stinger missiles from the United States and had sharply increased their rate of success against Soviet aircraft.

The news conference was called to discuss the general situation in Afghanistan, but Sotskov and other participants provided no indication of any change in the Soviet position.

Soviet troops invaded at the end of 1979 to quell a Muslim rebellion against the communist regime that seized power the year before. However, after nearly seven years of fighting the war is stalemated with Soviet control confined to a few cities.