Operational History
Alternate view.The most notable combat use of the SA-16 was during the Gulf War. On January 17, 1991, a Panavia Tornado bomber of the Royal Air Force was shot down by an Iraqi MANPADS that may have been an SA-16 (or SA-14) after an unsuccessful bombing mission.
The AC-130 Spectre lost in the war was claimed as been shot down by a MANPADS as well, and the analysis of the crash site indicated that it was actually an SA-16 missile, rather than an older SA-7 or SA-14.
In addition, an SA-16 may have shot down an F-16 during the first Gulf War.
During Operation Deliberate Force in 1995, one French Mirage 2000D was shot down over Bosnia with an Igla fired by air defence units of the Army of Republika Srpska.
Since the beginning of 2004, US Army confirmed that Iraqi insurgents used SA-16 missiles during the Iraq War, but did not specify which attacks might have involved SA-16 missiles Open sources generally attribute the downings to RPGs, less sophisticated SA-7s or generic "hostile fire".
Private intelligence company Stratfor asserts that SA-16 missiles were used in the 1994 shoot down of a Rwandan government flight, killing the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi and sparking the Rwandan Genocide, which resulted in approximately 800,000 deaths in 100 days.
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