New Tactics Used to Evade Missiles : Afghan Pilots Say They’ve Taken Sting Out of Stinger

The sophisticated, U.S.-made Stinger anti-aircraft missile, which helped Islamic rebels neutralize Soviet air power in Afghanistan, has itself been largely rendered useless in recent months by special flying techniques, according to Afghan air force pilots and independent military analysts.

“In the course of the many years of the war, we have found some flaws and shortcomings in this Stinger missile, and we are now taking advantage of them,” said Maj. Ramatullah, a 14-year air force veteran, during a rare press conference here Monday.

The pilot, who conceded that the Stinger is “the most powerful weapon they (the rebels) have,” refused to describe the evasive techniques. But military experts in Pakistan, which along with the United States is supporting the moujahedeen , and American journalists who recently accompanied rebel groups armed with the Stingers confirmed that the shoulder-fired missiles are now playing little or no role in the war.

Diving Technique

A military analyst at Pakistan’s Institute of Strategic Studies said recently that Afghan pilots are successfully evading the missiles by diving from altitudes beyond the Stinger’s range, then bombing and strafing rebel positions below levels for which the missile has been programmed.

Journalists covering the stalemated battle for the strategic eastern city of Jalalabad, the main theater for the war at present, have confirmed that they have seen rebels fail to fire Stingers at diving fighter jets because the computerized weapon is unable to track them.

Several analysts in Pakistan have cited the Stinger’s ineffectiveness in explaining the moujahedeen’s floundering, two-month-old effort to take Jalalabad, Afghanistan’s second-largest city and the only major city between the Pakistani border and the Afghan capital of Kabul.

The rebels also are hampered by the fact that they are a guerrilla force now fighting a conventional battle to take a city, rather than simply harassing government convoys and military outposts, the analyst said.

Action by Congress

The same analysts had earlier credited the Stingers with helping to shift the balance against the powerful Soviet army and air force, after the U.S. Congress agreed to send the high-technology weapons to the moujahedeen in 1986.

When the rebels began using the Stingers, Soviet jets were forced to bomb from higher altitudes, which contributed to the destruction of civilian villages and the alienation of the Afghan people. Scores of Soviet helicopters were also shot down.

But the decision to give the Stingers to the rebels, many of whom are fundamentalist Muslims opposed to U.S. policy elsewhere in the world, was controversial, and several missiles found their way across Afghanistan to Iran, which reportedly fired one at a U.S. helicopter over the Persian Gulf. Earlier this year, several U.S. congressmen proposed that the United States try to buy the missiles back from the Afghan rebels when the war is over, an idea several rebel commanders said is ridiculous.

The five pilots who appeared at Monday’s press conference cited the Iran incident. Describing the rebel force as “undisciplined, hitting like the blind man’s cane,” Maj. Jailani said, “These are people who took the Stinger from Peshawar, walked it across the width of Afghanistan and sold it to Iran, which used it against an American aircraft.”

The pilots’ press conference, the first since the war began, ostensibly was called in an effort to disprove Pakistani claims that Soviet pilots, assisted by the Indian air force, are still flying bombing sorties in the war. Such aid is prohibited under terms of last year’s accords that governed the withdrawal of Soviet troops by last Feb. 15.

One of the pilots said Monday that such allegations “make us feel defamed.”