Taliban Aircraft Destroyed But They Still Have Plenty Of Anti-aircraft Systems At Their Disposal

In the course of the anti-terrorist operation in Afghanistan, the USA destroyed all the Taliban's aircraft. However, the Taliban still have at their disposal quite a lot of air-defence systems. This was disclosed by a well-informed source with reference to the information of the Command of the Northern Alliance confronting the Taliban. According to the source several dozens of Soviet-made fighters MIG-19, MIG-21 and SU-7B which based at the aerodromes in Kabul, Bagram, Shindad, Kadahar and Mazar-i-Sharif were destroyed. Take-off and landing strips and navigational equipment were also destroyed. This notwithstanding, the Taliban, as before, have at their disposal anti-aircraft systems, the RIA Novosti's interlocutor said. Their quantity, according to various estimates, numbers several hundreds of units. As the source stressed, all Taliban's anti-aircraft systems are intended for hitting targets flying at low altitudes. The height of target destruction is no more than 3km for Stinger and Strela-2M systems, and 2km for the rest anti-aircraft systems. The Stingers have the highest target destruction probability - 0.6, while for the rest of the anti-aircraft systems it is much lower. According to the source, the Taliban have managed to preserve a large quantity of Soviet-made tanks -T-54, T-55 and T-62SU which is quite sufficient for waging defence actions.