In the immediate wake of the end of the Gaddafi regime last year, emphasis was placed on securing and/or destroying the massive stockpiles of weapons the terrorist dictator had amassed.
Memories echo of Iraq, when the US war plan did not put any effort into securing weapons stockpiles such as the Al Qaaqaa weapons depot, leading to the systematic and complete looting of hundreds of tons of weapons, including 350 tons of plastic explosives that directly fueled the rise of suicide bombing attacks that have killed tens of thousands.
Now, any time a regime crumbles, the spread of some of their deadly wares is frankly inevitable. And sale of them is highly lucrative. The fall of the Soviet Union lead to the rise of the 'Merchant of Death' arms dealer Viktor Bout, who sold old Soviet stockpiles of AK-47s, RPGs, even tanks and helicopters to fuel violence across the globe and particularly in West Africa. The former Russian intelligence agent Viktor Bout having just recently been handed a 25-year prison sentence in New York for attempting to sell surface-to-air missiles to the Colombian narco-terrorist group FARC.
As such, today comes good news. A joint US-French-British-Libyan team has scoured, secured, and/or destroyed some 5,000 man-portable surface to air missile launchers in Libya.
http://www.defensenews.com/...
A joint military-civilian team made up of U.K., French, U.S. and Libyan personnel have been in country since last August helping to track down the large numbers of weapons left by Gadhafi’s regime.
The U.S. government estimates Gadhafi’s forces had about 20,000 MANPADS in their armory at the time of the regime’s collapse, raising fears that the weapons could fall into the hands of terrorist organizations.
The British MoD said in a statement released April 12 that thousands of the weapons had been destroyed during the conflict, and that inspections of more than 1,600 ammunition bunkers had “identified, secluded, disabled or confirmed as destroyed 5,000 components and complete systems.”
Its true that Gaddafi had as many as 20,000 such weapons prior to his fall, but that does not mean there are 15,000 weapons capable of taking down an airliner still out there. For a variety of reasons:
1.) Some weapons are in the hands of regional libyan militias in the process of re-integrating with the national government.
2.) During the war, both sides expended numerous weapons. Though to obviously little effect. No NATO planes were ever brought down or even seriously threatened by them. The rebel Libyan forces never brought down any Gaddafi planes with them. I believe the only likely casualty of one of Gaddafi's 20,000 MANPADs was a defected rebel pilot shot down by friendly fire over Benghazi the day the NATO intervention began.
3.) After the initial first weeks of the NATO campaign...after air superiority had been established and Gaddafi's march on Benghazi had been stopped, perhaps the biggest primary mission of NATO warplanes was destroying Gaddafi's weapon caches. Destroying his ammunition was a top goal. Six months of bombardment of every known or suspected weapons stockpile under his control. Many thousands of MANPADs almost certainly were destroyed in this fashion.
4.) Almost all of Gaddafi's surface-to-air missiles were of the SA-7 Grail AKA Strela 2 variety. This is important because the SA-7 is essentially first generation technology. First produced in 1968, while they scored some early success against fixed wing aircraft in Vietnam and the Arab-Israeli wars of the 70s, they are now almost completely ineffective against fixed wing aircraft. Several attempts to bring down military and civilian airliners by Al Qaeda with them all failed. And its ineffective as well against military helicopters equipped with flares. Despite their prevalence in both Iraq and Afghanistan, no SA-7 has ever brought down a US military chopper in the last ten years. RPGs and more advanced weapons like the SA-16 (of which Gaddafi had less than 500 before the war) are of greater concern to US forces.
The only thing an SA-7 is really a threat to any more is a low-flying civilian helicopter. Thats a major concern, but I don't think we have to be worrying about 747s dropping out of the sky.
5.) Many of Gaddafi's MANPADs, while technically shoulder-fire capable, were instead mounted on to pick-up and flat-bed trucks. Two-to-Three systems, side by side, functioning as a turret. Many of these trucks were destroyed in the course of the conflict, and those remaining are not exactly easily smuggled anywhere further than Mali.
Its almost certain some weapons have bled out to other conflicts, most notably Mali, Niger, perhaps Darfur. And there have been rumors of weapons reaching Gaza, Somalia. And no doubt some enterprising dealers are hard at work in the Saharan desert to sell to the highest bidder. But six months after the death of Gaddafi, thousands of these weapons have now been accounted for and counting thanks to a bit of initiative from the United States and her allies.
Bottom line is this though. The cheapest, best thing the US can do to reduce & prevent conflict in this world is by working with other countries to secure and destroy weapons stockpiles. Whether its a cache of AK-47s in Angola or highly enriched uranium in Siberia.