Militant Lebanese Faction Reportedly Has Stinger Missiles
A militant Muslim group has acquired two U.S.-made Stinger surface-to-air missiles, the Lebanese magazine As Shiraa magazine said Friday.
The weekly magazine quoted an unidentified source close to the group, which it did not name, as saying the shoulder-held missiles “have reached Lebanon through an embassy that provided part of the large sum paid.” The magazine did not identify the embassy.
It also did not specify whether the fundamentalists were Shiite or Sunni Muslim. But Sunni factions have been inactive in Lebanon for some time, and the magazine implied that the militants belonged to a pro-Iranian Shiite group.
The phrasing of the report indicated that the Stingers were bought from Muslim Afghan guerrillas, who were given the missiles by the United States to combat Soviet warplanes.
The missiles were shipped by the United States to seven Afghan guerrilla factions based in Pakistan, the magazine said.
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