Stinger missiles for sale in Afghanistan

American-made Stinger missiles that can take down an aircraft are for sale in the Afghan capital for £128,000 (€200,000), and rockets for as little as £3,200 (€5,000), international peacekeepers said today.

Unidentified individuals, perhaps the same ones who fired several rockets at Kabul last week, have recently offered to sell the deadly weapons to peacekeepers, the Turkish commander of the multinational force said.

The 4,800-strong International Security Assistance Force has no policy to buy arms, Major General Hilmi Akin Zorlu added.

Last week, six rockets flew over Kabul and exploded on the city’s far eastern outskirts. A day later, another rocket slammed into a two storey building near the Finance Ministry in the city centre.

Neither incident caused casualties or serious damage.

“After almost each incident we have been receiving some proposals to buy some rockets or missiles,” Zorlu told reporters.

Asked how much the arms cost, Zorlu said: “Some cheap, £3,200 (€5,000), £6,400 (€10,000). For a Stinger missile, £128,000 (€200,000).”

It was not clear why the men trying to sell the weapons were not arrested.

The country has been flooded with weapons over the last 23 years of almost constant fighting.

In the late 1980s, the CIA supplied Afghan rebels with hundreds of surface-to-air Stinger missiles to aid their fight against the former Soviet Union.

It is estimated that between 50 to 100 missiles remain. Several years ago, the United States offered to buy back the remaining missiles for £50,000 (€78,500) each. None were reportedly sold.

Stinger missiles lock onto their targets using a radar-guided system, making them more effective than heat-seeking missiles, which are easily rebuffed by decoy flares.