Antiterror alliance nets arms 'sting'

But for the Russians, cooperation is seen through the lens of its ongoing war in Chechnya. The high-profile loss of Russian helicopters to Igla missiles and their three-mile range, analysts say, is one reason Putin has deployed FSB agents to work with units of the demoralized Russian military.

A chief task has been to keep an eye on Russian weapons stocks, to prevent sale by rogue officers and soldiers trying to get rich quickly at the expense of fellow soldiers fighting in Chechnya.

"Those Igla and Stinger missiles represent a very dangerous weapon in the hands of terrorists, and the Russians face a considerable problem with them in Chechnya," says Alexander Pikayev, head of nonproliferation issues at the Carnegie Moscow Center.

Cooperation with the US and UK on the sting operation is one way Russia is trying to convince former Soviet states to also take greater care to stop the "illegal export of such missiles, that are so dangerous for the Russians, and potentially for the world."

But the operation also points to the firmness of US-Russia ties and personal relationships established by Presidents Bush and Putin before the Iraq crisis. "Despite political disagreements on Iraq and other questions, this is a symbol that still the cooperation between special services goes on, while in other cases they continue working against each other."

"It represents a continuation of the new unique situation that emerged in US-Russia relations after Sept. 11," says Mr. Pikayev, when the Russians provided quite unexpectedly a very considerable amount of intelligence information about Afghanistan."

But the possibilities of proliferation still exist, despite official Russian efforts to shut it down.

"The central problem is the surpluses of the Red Army arsenals, which are spread across the former Soviet Union," says Ruslan Pukhov, of the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies in Moscow. "The control is particularly weak in such failed states like Ukraine and Tajikistan - all countries where there is a so-called 'democratic regime.' In [authoritarian] countries like Turkmenistan and Belorussia, everything is under control."

Russian soldiers, especially those outside of Moscow, are underpaid. They use their access to military equipment to sell it on the black market. One such missile brought down a troop-ferrying helicopter last year, killing more than 100 troops on board.

"Russian military and civil authorities try to combat it, but when we see regular attacks on soldiers [with such missiles] in Chechnya ... it's clear that it still happens," says Mr. Pukhov.

Thousands of such missiles exist, and Al Qaeda is known to have dozens left from the US effort in the 1980s to force Soviet forces from Afghanistan using US-trained Islamic militants.

But getting them from Russia is increasingly difficult, as the new arrests attest. "Compared to the 1990s, when [Soviet] weapons were being sold right, left, and center from many sources. After Putin came to power, the scale decreased," says Ms. Antonenko.

"There is regular checking now in the units, so it is a lot harder to sell, especially new weapons, which are registered. The reason for this was the major supply of weapons to the Chechen side ... from Russia" through criminal networks, she says.

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