Iran has long been known to have some Stinger missiles, but how many it had and how it obtained them has long been a question.
A few Stingers were found on board Pasdar boats after the battles that the US Navy fought with the Pasdaran in 1988. No Stinger is believed to have ever been fired at a US aircraft, however.
The Stinger is rated the single best hand-held anti-aircraft missile in the world. US officials have worried about Stingers falling into the hands of terrorists. However, they take consolation in the fact that the Stinger was intentionally made complex so that no one just picking up the missile would be capable of launching it.
The United States gave Stingers to the Afghan mujahideen starting in 1986 and trained some Afghans in how to fire the weapon at Soviet aircraft, which they did with great success. Many in the United States credit the
Stinger program with convincing the Soviet Union to withdraw from Afghanistan. However, documents released after the fall of the Soviet Union show that the Kremlin Politburo decided to get out of Afghanistan before the Stingers were provided to the mujahideen.
Retired Lt. Gen. Hamid Gul, who headed Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence in the late 1980s, told Kyodo News of Japan that at least 16 Stingers and several launchers were seized by Iran from a group of Afghan mujahideen while they were transiting the missiles through Iran in 1986. Gul did not say why the mujahideen took the missiles into Iran.
The fact that they were seized by Iran might mean that the Iranians got no training in their use. It had previously been assumed that Iran had paid some mujahideen to hand over some Stingers and presumably got training in their use at the same time.
Gul said, “This was the first file on my table when I joined as director general of Inter Service Intelligence.” He was chief of ISI from 1987 to 1989.
He said Pakistan launched an effort to get the missiles back to no avail. That effort included letters written by then President Zia ul-Haq to Iranian officials seeking their return.
News reports said the CIA gave 1,200 Stingers to the mujahideen, but only about 180 were used before the Soviet withdrawal in 1989. The CIA then began offering huge sums to get the unused Stingers back because of the fear terrorists would get their hands on some and use them to shoot down passenger plans. Very few were ever recovered.
Gul’s report on the Stingers seized by Iran does not eliminate the possibility that Iran also bought Stingers on other occasions from some mujahideen.