Taliban in first heat-seeking missile attack
Pastor Dale Morgan
Taliban in first heat-seeking missile attack*
By Tom Coghlan in Kabul
Last Updated: 2:38am BST 28/07/2007
Taliban militants have used a heat-seeking surface-to-air missile to
attack a Western aircraft over Afghanistan for the first time.
The attack with a weapon believed to have been smuggled across the
border with Iran represents a worrying increase in the capability of the
militants which Western commanders had long feared.
The Daily Telegraph has learnt that the Taliban attempted to bring down
an American C-130 Hercules aircraft flying over the south-western
province of Nimroz on July 22. The crew reported that a missile system
locked on to their aircraft and that a missile was fired.
It closed in on the large C-130 aircraft, pursuing it as the pilots
launched a series of violent evasive manoeuvres and jettisoned flares to
confuse the heat sensors in the nose of the missile. Crew members said
that they saw what they believe was a missile passing very close to the
aircraft. The C-130 was not damaged in the attack.
Nato officials yesterday refused to confirm or deny that such an attack
had taken place.
"If there was such an incident of the type you describe in Nimroz it is
classified," said a Nato spokesman. "I can't release it, if in fact it
did occur."
However, a surface-to-air missile alert was put out for Western aircraft
travelling in the south-west of Afghanistan in the last week, which
affected both civilian and military aircraft.
It was confirmed by civilian air operators in Helmand province. It
remains in place. Western military commanders have been aware of
concerted efforts by the Taliban to obtain shoulder-launched
surface-to-air missiles, so-called Manpads (man portable air defence
system).
The recent attack was probably with an SA7 shoulder-launched missile, an
elderly model of Soviet or Chinese origin. Though relatively primitive
they are still a potent weapon, particularly against low-flying
helicopters, such as the workhorse Chinook transporters used by British
forces in the southern Helmand province.
The C-130 attacked in Nimroz was flying at 11,000ft at the time of the
attack, which is within the 2.5-5 km range of a shoulder-launched
missile system such as the SA7.
Though the West supplied hundreds of sophisticated Stinger heat-seeking
missiles to the Afghan Mujaheddin in the 1980s, they are not thought to
be still usable because of the deterioration of their sophisticated
electronics and battery systems.
As a contingency in 2002, the United States government offered an
amnesty on Stingers and successfully bought back many of the missiles
still in the arsenals of Afghan warlords for $40,000 a missile.
To date, the Taliban has shot down a number of Western helicopters, but
only through the use of unguided rocket-propelled grenades, which have a
range of only 500 yards.
In April members of the Special Boat Service operating in Nimroz
province intercepted several truck loads of weapons coming across the
Iranian border, including a working SA7 missile. It was one of a number
of recent weapon caches that Western officials claim have been seized on
the border with Iran, fuelling allegations by Britain and America that
Iran, or elements within the Iranian government, have begun supplying
arms to the Taliban.
Hundreds of SA7 missiles disappeared into the black market in Iraq in
the aftermath of the fall of Saddam Hussein, where they have since been
used to shoot down dozens of helicopters and aircraft, reportedly
including a British C-130 in 2005.
Meanwhile, a Taliban spokesman said that the group would allow more time
for an envoy from Seoul to travel to join talks for the release of 22
South Korean hostages. But the spokesman repeated the threat that
militants would kill the 22 Christian missionaries.