Man-portable air-defense system

These missiles, affordable and widely available through a variety of sources, have been used successfully over the past three decades, both in military conflicts, by militant groups, and by terrorist organizations.

This means they are only capable of accurately tracking the aircraft from the rear when the engines are fully exposed to the missile's seeker and provide a sufficient thermal signature for engagement.

First generation IR missiles are also highly susceptible to interfering thermal signatures from background sources, including the sun, which many experts feel makes them somewhat unreliable, and they are prone to erratic behaviour in the terminal phase of engagement.

[8] While less effective than more modern weapons, they remain common in irregular forces as they are not limited by the short shelf-life of gas coolant cartridges used by later systems.

[citation needed] Third generation infrared MANPADS, such as the French Mistral, the Soviet 9K38 Igla, and the US Stinger B, use rosette scanning detectors to produce a quasi-image of the target.

Numerous reports from the Soviet–Afghan War in the 1980s cite Afghan mujahedin as being disappointed with the British-supplied Blowpipe CLOS missile because it was too difficult to learn to use and highly inaccurate, particularly when employed against fast-moving jet aircraft.

[11] Later versions of CLOS missiles, such as the British Javelin, use a solid-state television camera in lieu of the optical tracker to make the gunner's task easier.

[27] Understanding the problem in 2003, Colin Powell remarked that there was "no threat more serious to aviation" than the missiles,[28] which can be used to shoot down helicopters and commercial airliners, and are sold illegally for as little as a few hundred dollars.

The U.S. has led a global effort to dismantle these weapons, with over 30,000 voluntarily destroyed since 2003, but probably thousands are still in the hands of insurgents, especially in Iraq, where they were looted from the military arsenals of the former dictator Saddam Hussein,[29][30] and in Afghanistan as well.