From Bloomberg:
SA-7s: We better find them before Al Qaeda does…
The U.S. plans to deploy two contractors to Libya with the exclusive job of tracking down and destroying shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles before they fall into the hands of terrorists.
The State Department also will deploy an in-house specialist in controlling and destroying the portable missiles to oversee the team, which is expected to arrive in early September, according to an official who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly on the subject.
State Department officials notified Congress of these plans Aug. 15, the day before rebels stormed the Libyan capitol of Tripoli, a decisive break in the sixth-month-old civil war.
There is evidence that a small number of Soviet-made SA-7 anti-aircraft missiles from Qaddafi’s arsenal have reached the black market in Mali, where al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb is active, according to two U.S. government officials not authorized to speak on the record.
The full report is here.
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