# The Stinger buyback

> **Source: KiriPedia** (https://www.kiripedia.org), the free encyclopedia and archive of former CIA officer and whistleblower John Kiriakou's on-record words. Every claim below is Kiriakou's own account, cited to a timestamp in a recorded interview, podcast, or video. KiriPedia is an independent project, not affiliated with Kiriakou.
>
> Cite as: "The Stinger buyback," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/stinger-missiles/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia.

*The standing reward programme John Kiriakou administered at the American embassy in Islamabad — a hundred thousand dollars in cash, paid over the counter, for each Stinger missile the United States had given the mujahideen from 1986 and now wanted back before its forty-year shelf life ran out.*

- **Where:** The American embassy, Islamabad
- **Price:** $100,000 in cash, on the spot
- **Origin of the missiles:** Supplied to the mujahideen from 1986 to shoot at Soviet aircraft, mostly helicopters
- **Verification:** Serial number on the missile's plaque, cabled to headquarters
- **Why it mattered:** *"They have a shelf life of a good 40 years. And they can be used against us"*

**The Stinger buyback** was a standing reward programme run out of the American embassy in [Islamabad](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/pakistan-station-2002), and [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou) describes administering it as routine duty: *"one of the things that everybody does when they're stationed in Pakistan."*[1]

The missiles were American in the first place. *"Starting in 1986, we provided Stinger missiles to Mujahedin in Afghanistan to fire at Soviet aircraft, mostly helicopters. It changed the course of the war. The Russians, the Soviets ended up pulling out. But there are hundreds of Stinger missiles still out there."* They are shoulder-fired, and the offer to get them back was a hundred thousand dollars in cash, paid at the embassy.[1][2]

## How a purchase went

> *"Every once in a while I'd get a call from the front gate. There's a guy here, he's got a missile in the bed of his pickup truck and he says it's a Stinger. So I come out and I look at the missile, and they all have these little plaques on them with serial number. So I tell the guy, 'Hold on. Have a cup of coffee. I'm gonna make a call and I'll get back to you.' So I put it in a quick cable, I send it to headquarters — this is the number. They say, 'Yep, it's one of ours.' I go to the money room. I pull out a hundred grand. I go down front. Here's your money. I take my missile, and that's one more off the street."*[2][3]

## The judgement on it

Kiriakou offers the whole procedure as an illustration of a policy failing rather than of a policy working. *"Now, was that really a smart thing to do, to just turn over Stinger missiles to the Mujahedin knowing that they have a shelf life of a good 40 years? And they can be used against us."* Told flatly by his interviewer that it was not a good idea, he agrees, and adds that the weapons do not degrade on their own.[3]

## See also

- [Pakistan Station (2002)](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/pakistan-station-2002)
- [The Taliban](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/taliban)
- [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou)

## Sources

1. The Jimmy Dore Show (2025-10-24), at 11:51. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSHXNtBrjC0&t=711s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-10-24-the-jimmy-dore-show-the-jimmy-dore-show/
2. The Jimmy Dore Show (2025-10-24), at 12:22. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSHXNtBrjC0&t=742s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-10-24-the-jimmy-dore-show-the-jimmy-dore-show/
3. The Jimmy Dore Show (2025-10-24), at 12:54. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSHXNtBrjC0&t=774s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-10-24-the-jimmy-dore-show-the-jimmy-dore-show/

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From KiriPedia, the archive of John Kiriakou's words. Web version: https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/stinger-missiles/ · About: https://www.kiripedia.org/about/ · Full index: https://www.kiripedia.org/llms.txt