The United States is discussing with the Libyan interim government the creation of a programme to purchase shoulder-fired, heat-seeking missiles from militia members and others who gathered them up during the war, American government officials said.
The talks are the latest step in a multinational effort to contain the risks posed by the thousands of portable antiaircraft weapons that are unaccounted for after rebel fighters overran government weapons depots during the battle against Col. Muammar el-Qadhafi's forces. Western security officials worry that terrorists could use this particular type of missile, which is lightweight and relatively easy to fire, to menace civilian passenger planes.
To control spread of Manpads
Details remain unresolved, the officials said. But in essence the U.S. would provide money and technical support to Libya's government, which would purchase the missiles, and either lock them up in government arsenals or destroy them.
“We think we have come to the point where we need some sort of special programme,” one official familiar with the plans said.
The missiles, believed to command premium prices on the black market, are a limited threat to modern military warplanes but pose potentially grave dangers to civilian aircraft, which rarely are equipped with the electronic countermeasures that can thwart heat-seeking warheads. Known as Man-Portable Air Defence Systems, or Manpads, the missiles are a class of weapon that includes the well-known Stinger. The version loose in large quantities in Libya, the SA-7, is an earlier Eastern bloc generation.
Assistant Secretary of State Andrew J. Shapiro raised the American desire to arrange a purchase programme in a meeting this month with Libya's new Defence Minister, according to American officials familiar with the proposal.
The U.S. has committed $40 million to secure Libya's arms stockpiles, much of it to prevent the spread of Manpads. No budget has been designed for a purchase programme, and the price to be paid for each missile and its components has not been determined, the official said.
If Libya agrees to a programme, prices will probably be set by Libyan officials after testing the market, he added.
The official, along with others, spoke on the condition of anonymity because the program, if approved, would be classified. The American government has estimated that Libya's military imported 20,000 of the missiles during Colonel Qadhafi's reign; the number now missing is a fraction of that. Precise estimates are impossible, officials say, because no one is sure how many the military still possessed at the outset of the uprising or later after months of fighting.
Some of the missiles were fired in training and in war. Others were disassembled by rebels, who used their tubes as makeshift launchers for other looted ordnance. Many of the missing missiles were looted, either by rebels or would-be profiteers. Many more were destroyed in bunkers that were hit in airstrikes.
Survey teams
Since the war's end, the State Department has paid for teams of private security contractors who have been canvassing the country, examining former government arms depots and meeting with anti-Qadhafi militia commanders to try to account for and secure the remaining stock. The U.S. has also sent teams to the countries bordering Libya to encourage increased inspections and vigilance for missile trafficking.
So far, the survey teams have accounted for about 5,000 missiles, the State Department said, including those destroyed or fired, held by militia groups or disabled by the teams.
Officials caution that given the large number of missiles presumed missing, and the limited ability of Libya's interim authorities to police their borders or to control the militias, not all the missiles will be accounted for or secured.
The goal, they said, is to reduce the chances of large numbers turning up on the black market by finding and collecting as many missiles as they can, and ensure that as many others as possible are stored safely.
The decision to seek Libya's agreement for a missile-purchase programme is a recognition that the efforts so far have had their limits.
As part of the assessment of problems in recent months, survey teams have found that significant quantities of the missiles are in the hands of the hundreds of armed militias in Libya. But the militias have shown little interest in turning the weapons in, participants said. An official familiar with the proposal said that putting money or other forms of aid on the table in exchange for the missiles might create incentives for the militias.
( C.J. Chivers reported from Washington, and Misurata, Mizdah and Tripoli, Libya. ) — New York Times News Service
