Afghan cash-for-weapons program leads to tips

A U.S. Defense Department program under which Afghans can tip off foreign forces about hidden mines or weapons and get money in return has paid out nearly $200,000 in its first three months, NATO’s International Security Assistance Force said in a statement Friday.

Since Oct. 1, about 150 Afghans have cashed in on the incentives, which range from $50 to $10,000 for information that leads to weapons caches or “the disruption of enemy activities,” ISAF said.

Boston Globe article

The Aviation Battalion I was assigned to while at Ansbach had a Cobra that lost 3 folding fin rockets while flying from the ammo depot to the firing range at Hohenfels.

The Battalion spent an entire Memorial Day weekend walking his flight path looking for the rockets. A couple of pilots suggested that they offer money or cigarettes to the Germans in exchange for the rockets. That never happened but we never found the rockets.

5 rockets were turned in by Germans in the week following the incident. Strangely the serial numbers on the rockets didn’t match the ones we were looking for.