WASHINGTON Reuter: The Soviet Union may have started deploying the World’s first operational ground based laser antisatellite system Aviation Week and Space Technology magazine said.
It said the White House was assessing intelligence reports suggesting this development as well as evidence that Moscow is now in a Position to break out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty.
Aviation Week said that a U.S air force reconnaissance satellite has photographed two new unusually large high technology facilities under construction on mountain tops near the Soviet Afghanistan border which intelligence analysts believe involve laser weapons.
Some US Intelligence experts believe that the facilities will be operational Soviet antisatellite laser installations that could be upgraded to antiballistic missile lasers with more advanced pointing and tracking systems.
The magazine quoted senior officials with the strategic defense initiative or Star Wars program as saying that while there is debate over the exact nature of the facilities they dwarf all of the U.S laser weapons development facilities.
Article extracted from this publication >> September 19, 1986
