"Our gunners couldn't fire the weapon," the source recalled. "A notice
came up on the display saying 'friendly aircraft.'"
Industry sources said Raytheon, producer of Stinger, installed
identification friend/foe capabilities more than a decade ago. The sources
said this would prevent Stinger from being fired against any aircraft used
by the U.S. military.
Another Hamas source said gunners deployed Stinger along with heavy
machine guns in attacks on Israeli helicopters during the war in the Gaza
Strip. The source said one Stinger surface-to-air missile was launched, but
the projectile veered off course and struck a Hamas gunner squad.
"The Stinger was drawn by the heat of our guns rather than the engines
of the Israeli helicopters," the source said. "At that point, we stopped using this
weapon."
The sources said Hamas has abandoned plans to acquire additional
Stingers. Instead, the Islamic army has been ordering the Russian-origin
SA-16, or Igla-1, surface-to-air missile system, with a range of five
kilometers.
