Experts Fear Looted Libyan Arms May Find Way to Terrorists

Via NY Times -

Security analysts say the armed uprising in Libya poses a long-term security threat — that weapons looted from government stockpiles could circulate widely, including heat-seeking antiaircraft missiles that could be used against civilian airliners.

Photographs and video from the uprising show civilians carrying a full array of what were once the Libyan military’s weapons — like the SA-7, an early-generation, shoulder-fired missile in the same family as the more widely known Stinger — that intelligence agencies have long worried could fall into terrorists’ hands.

They also show large groups of young men equipped with a complete suite of lightweight, simple-to-use and durable infantry arms, including assault rifles, machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades, which have been a staple of fighting in Africa and Asia since midway through the cold war. Mines, grenades and several types of antitank missiles can be seen as well.

Past examples of state arsenals being looted by civilians — whether in Uganda in 1979, Albania in 1997 or Iraq in 2003 — have shown that once these weapons slip from state custody they can be sold through black markets, swiftly and quietly, to other countries and groups for use in wars where they can present long-lasting and destabilizing problems. Analysts are particularly concerned about the heat-seeking missiles, known as Man-Portable Air-Defense Systems, or Manpads.

“The danger of these missiles ending up in the hands of terrorists and insurgents outside of Libya is very real,” said Matthew Schroeder, the director of the Arms Sales Monitoring Project at the Federation of American Scientists in Washington. “Securing these missiles should be a top priority of the U.S. intelligence community and their counterparts overseas.”

The principal threat, the analysts said, is not necessarily that the rebels themselves, who want international sympathy and support, might use such weapons against airliners. Rather, the concern is that because these missiles can sell for at least several thousand dollars on black markets, opportunists will gather and offer them to third parties — pushing them into the underground trade.

Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s military was not particularly well-led, competent or large at the start of this conflict, with an army of roughly 45,000 soldiers, according to an assessment by Jane’s Information Group.

But over the decades, Colonel Qaddafi has spent heavily to equip his forces and amass reserve munitions and arms. He has been accused of procuring weapons to pass on to many foreign groups, including Palestinian and Irish fighters, rebel groups and friendly governments in sub-Saharan Africa.

The weapons that have emerged from storehouses in recent days confirm that despite international sanctions, Libya had acquired arms from multiple sellers in the former Eastern bloc, accumulating an arsenal that looks like the bounty of cold war clearance sales.