I read an article in this morning’s paper (Sunday 7 Oct) in which the author described the scene in Kabul a few days back as a 20-year old British-made missile was fired at, and missed, a US surveillance flight.
Unfortunately, this article has been supplanted by more current stories in the online sites I’ve looked at.
Were the Brits (or other NATO countries) assisting the mujahideen alongside the US, or did the mujahideen simply get these missiles from third countries?
The US and, I would think, other NATO nations helped the Taliban during the 1979-1989 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The war was a disaster for the Soviets, and is sometimes compared to Vietnam.
We even built the camps currently used by the terrorists.
Osama bin Laden: Your tax dollars at work.
The SAS did work with the Mujahadeen when they were the “good guys”. Well, technically the SAS didn’t as the soldiers resigned, and were employed by MI6.
Bizzarely they even trained them in Scotland, as the terrain is “similar” (not to these eyes it isn’t).
For details read the Andy McNAb Book Immediate Action which goes into some details.
The missile you’re referring to is the Blowpipe, similar to the US Stinger (but not as good) which were supplied to the Mujahadeen by the UK in thhe 70/80s.
Thanks for the detail, owlstretchingtime. I’m going to hijack my own thread to ask:
How common were such Cold War covert activities by the British? Watching and reading American media over the years, my perspective is of course limited on other countries’ involvement. On the other hand, I doubt there were SAS agents helping to mine Nicaraguan harbors.
Well DQA if I told you that I’d have to kill you!
THe simple answer is I have no idea and we probably won’t know for a while. However there was quite a bit of anti-terrrorist activity involving the UK/Germany and Israel. But that was more of an internal security issue.
THe only places outside the UK that I am sure the SAS operate are Oman and Malaysia, which are allies and training partners.
er the Mujahideen is now the Northern alliance pushed out of Kabul by the taliban around 1994-5 , the taliban was supported by the CIA , we used to support the Mujahideen then the taliban then the mujahideen its going nuts
Oh, damn, sorry. I should have read my source mateiral better.