At the US government's request, South Africa began lending UNITA a greater degree of material assistance, and aided the CIA in the acquisition of untraceable arms for the Angolan insurgents. The CIA was interested in acquiring Soviet and Eastern European arms for UNITA, as they could be easily passed off as weapons individual partisans had captured from FAPLA. South Africa possessed a vast stockpile of Soviet arms seized during Operations Sceptic, Protea, and Askari, and was persuaded to transfer some of it to UNITA.