Libya's missing missiles: a threat to US airline passengers
If terrorists get hold of some of Qaddafi's 20,000 shoulder-fired missiles and manage to bring down an airliner in the United States, the economic repercussions would be huge. Antimissile systems exist, but so far US airlines have balked at the expense.
In this file photo taken in March, a Libyan rebel holds his anti-aircraft missile as he looks to the sky, in the oil town of Ras Lanouf, eastern Libya. Worries are escalating that a cache of 20,000 such weapons has not been secured, allowing terrorists from Africa to Afghanistan access to weapons that could bring down commercial airliners.
Hussein Malla/AP/File
Are air passengers in the United States at risk from shoulder-fired missiles stolen from Libya?
Skip to next paragraphRecent posts
-
12.31.11
Credit card debt: Are consumers returning to bad habits? -
12.29.11
New Year's resolution (and modern fable): Spend more! -
12.28.11
In budget battle, voters are the 'adults in the room' -
12.24.11
Is the curtain falling on the eurozone? -
12.23.11
FedEx delivery video: Package thrown. FedEx apologizes on YouTube.
Subscribe Today to the Monitor
The Obama administration has assured Americans that most of Muammar Qaddafi's cache of 20,000 shoulder-fired missiles (man-portable air defense systems or MANPADs) is still in Libya. However, House Intelligence Committee chairman Mike Rogers is not so sure.
In a CNN interview Nov. 14, the Michigan Republican expressed doubt that “very undisciplined” Libyan troops “will be able to secure the weapons sites” until the country is stable. That same day, one of al Qaeda’s North African commanders confirmed that his terrorist group (Al Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb) had obtained weapons looted during the bloody fight for control of Libya. Mr. Rogers’s concern was underscored by NATO’s military committee chairman, Adm. Giampaolo di Paola (now Italy’s new defense minister), who said Libyan MANPADs could be scattered “from Kenya to Kunduz [Afghanistan].”
IN PICTURES: Terrorist attacks against the United States
How many of Libya’s shoulder fired missiles have been stolen is unknown. However, if only a single missile – 4 to 5 feet long, weighing between 32 and 42 pounds – found its way from the Middle East or Africa to Asia, Europe, or the United States (smuggled in through, say, a tunnel from Mexico) and brought down a passenger aircraft, the economic impact would be huge. Some estimates put the direct costs of just one downed US passenger plane at $1 billion.
These days, when the US economy is struggling already, the downing of a passenger plane by a MANPAD would lead not only to the grounding of the entire nation's passenger fleet, but to the devastation of the air-travel dependent US economy. After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, for example, it took four years before US passenger traffic returned to pre-9/11 levels.
As if the threat from missing Libyan MANPADS were not enough, there are additional concerns. Spreading destabilization in the Middle East and Africa, Iran’s growing reach in Latin America, the US withdrawal from Iraq, rising violence in Afghanistan, and worsening relations with Pakistan, are enabling easier movement of stolen missiles, increasing the dangers to commercial carriers.
These comments are not screened before publication. Constructive debate about the above story is welcome, but personal attacks are not. Please do not post comments that are commercial in nature or that violate any copyright[s]. Comments that we regard as obscene, defamatory, or intended to incite violence will be removed. If you find a comment offensive, you may flag it.