[El Gato]

Right there has to have been about 1/2 of their Su-20/22s. I best the rest of 'em and their Mig's aren't in any better shape either. Remember the purpose of the military is to kill people and break things, well looks like they did a good job on the breaking things part at Herat.

[Tommyjo]

The majority of these aircraft that were lined up were MiG-17 'Fresco'. This is basically an aircraft dump for disused aircraft left over from the Soviet supplied Afghan Air Force. Photographs taken over the years since the withdrawl of Soviet forces show large numbers of derilict ex-Afghan Air Force aircraft dragged into dumps such as shown on strike photographs. Recent footage in the last few days from Bagram (Northern Alliance side) airbase show large numbers of ex-Afghan Air Force derilict MiG-21 'Fishbed'. The operational aircraft that the Taliban and Northern Alliance used were small numbers of Su-20/22 'Fitter' and MiG-21 'Fishbed'. In the case of the Taliban these MiG-21s and Su-22 and a small number of L-39 attack aircraft would probably have been moved out into hiding places such as inside disused buildings. The cratering of runways is to prevent any of these hidden aircraft from having access to the runways. There are very limited targets and many of the Navy aircraft are bringing back some of their bombs as revealed on the newscasts from the carrier forces in the region. The targetting of this aircraft dump is basically that it looks good on the strike photos and also was probably targetted by a pilot/crew looking for targets of opportunity.