Special Section: Terrorist Attacks on America

Afghanistan

View a map of Afghanistan and the surrounding region.

In December 1979, Soviets troops invaded Afghanistan. To counter the spread of Soviet influence, the United States funneled billions of dollars in weapons into the hands of the Mujahideen groups that fought the Soviet troops and the Soviet-installed Afghan government. The war raged until the Soviet withdrawal in 1989; however, U.S. arms support continued through 1992, the year the communist government fell to the Mujahideen.

It is the fate of the weapons delivered to both sides during the war in Afghanistan that now concerns the United States, but accurate and current information on Afghanistan's weapons arsenal is not publicly available. Of greatest concern are the Stinger anti-aircraft missiles that were left in Afghanistan after U.S. disengagement in 1992. The Stinger is a shoulder- or platform-fired, highly mobile, highly accurate missile with a maximum range of five miles. Its long range and sophisticated guidance made the Stinger highly effective against Soviet airplanes and helicopters, and Stingers were credited with turning the tide of the war in the Mujahideen's favor. Fears that the Stingers would surface in other conflicts or be used against the United States in future terrorist acts led to a U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) "buy-back" program after the war, wherein the CIA attempted to purchase all remaining Stingers. While the CIA was able to recover around 70 Stingers, its program raised the price of the missiles on the Afghan black market, leaving many missiles unaccounted for.[1] Estimates of the number of Stingers remaining in Afghanistan vary widely, with some sources suggesting there are approximately 170,[2] and others placing the number between 300 and 600.[3] These missiles, however, are now 15 years old, and their performance would greatly depend on how well they have been stored and maintained.

The presence of Soviet SCUD-B surface-to-surface missiles, with a range of 186 miles, may pose a threat to U.S. forces if they are deployed to bases in Pakistan. The Soviet Union provided the pro-Soviet Afghan government with hundreds of SCUD-B missiles, but how many remain in Afghanistan today, and their condition, is unknown.[6,7]

In 1979, reports surfaced of alleged Soviet chemical weapons attacks on the Mujahideen. The United Nations investigated the claims; however, their results were inconclusive.[4] There are no other reports of use of biological, chemical, radiological or nuclear weapons in Afghanistan. Afghanistan signed the Chemical Weapons Convention in 1993, and has ratified both the Biological Weapons Convention and the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

There are allegations that groups within Afghanistan have acquired, or attempted to acquire, weapons of mass destruction (WMD), but these claims have not been confirmed. Most of the allegations center on Usama bin Laden, the terrorist leader of Al-Qaida. Many newspaper reports claim that bin Laden is developing ties with the Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein, leading to speculation that WMD technology may be exchanged. The U.S. Defense Department report, Proliferation: Threat and Response, claims that bin Laden and his agents have "trained with toxic chemicals," although the report does not specifically state that bin Laden has chemical warfare agents.[5] There are also reports of bin Laden attempting to acquire nuclear and radioactive materials, but there is no evidence that these attempts have been successful. Reports that bin Laden has obtained stolen nuclear weapons from Russia have circulated, but they are unlikely to be true and have never been confirmed.[8]

[1] Alan J. Kuperman, "The Stinger Missile and U.S. Intervention in Afghanistan," in Demetrios James Caraley, ed.,The New American Interventionism: Lessons from Successes and Failures (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), p. 194.
[2] Daniel McGrory, "CIA Stung by its Stingers," Daily Telegraph, November 3, 1996, http://www.telegraph.co.uk.
[3] Kuperman, "The Stinger Missile and U.S. Intervention in Afghanistan," pp. 194-195.
[4] Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, http://www.opcw.org/guide.htm.
[5] Office of the Secretary of Defense, Proliferation: Threat and Response, January 2001, p. i, http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/ptr20010110.pdf.
[6] Ludwig W. Adamec, Dictionary of Afghan Wars, Revolutions, and Insurgencies (Lanham, Md: The Scarecrow Press, 1996), p. 197.
[7] Raytheon Systems Company, Missile Systems of the World (USA: AMI International, 1999), p. 528.
[8] Kimberly McCloud and Matthew Osborne, "WMD Terrorism and Usama bin Laden," http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/reports/binladen.htm.

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