NATO: At Least 10,000 ‘Lost Missiles’ in Libya

Missiles a Threat to Civil Aviation

In a secret meeting with German MPs, top NATO officials reportedly confirmed that over 10,000 missiles inside Libya are still completely unaccounted for, with Admiral Giampaolo di Paola saying that the missiles pose a “serious threat to civil aviation.”

That’s because among those missiles they still haven’t found are over 5,000 SAM-7 shoulder-fired suface to air missiles, which could be easily used by any terrorist to shoot down aircraft.

Admiral Di Paola was said to have warned that the missiles could show up anywhere from Kenya to Kunduz (Afghanistan) while a Libyan general expressed concern that the arms had “fallen into the wrong hands.”

Fear about the Libyan missiles has been growing since the fall of Tripoli, as the Gadhafi regime’s forces left the weapons dumps unguarded, and the NATO-backed rebels did nothing to secure them. Instead, the weapons were looted en masse, with many already smuggled abroad.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.