New Delhi, October 10
Of the 80 to 100 dreaded Stinger missiles that are believed to be in the possession of the Taliban, some 30 may still be operational, according to an assessment of the Ministry of Defence here.

According to well-placed sources here, the Stingers are much more effective and accurate in daytime than nights because they work on heat-seeking mode.

If that is so why then the Taliban did not use it today when the USA for the first time conducted air raids on Afghanistan today during the day since “Operation Enduring Freedom” began on October 7?

The security circles here are agog with speculations for this baffling US military tactic which has given rise to discussion of two theories. One, that the Taliban stockpile of the Stingers has been destroyed during the night air raids of October 7 and 8 and the USA is aware of that.

Secondly, the Taliban’s Stingers have become damp squibs because they have outlived their shelf life. The Taliban had got the Stingers ironically from the USA itself way back in the mid-eighties for use against the Soviet occupational forces. Stingers have a shelf life of 10 years only.

However, the Indian Defence Ministry’s assessment as articulated by a spokesman for the ministry at today’s joint briefing with the Ministry of External Affairs, can be extremely significant if correct. The Afghan Mujahideen had downed more than a 100 Soviet aircraft with the help of the Stinger missiles and this wonder weapon had hit the morale of the Soviets.

The CIA had given 400 missiles to Pakistan’s ISI for end use by the Mujahideen of which, as per the US records, only about half were used. The worried Americans started stock-taking of the Stingers after the Afghan war ended in 1989 with the Soviet pullout.