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-Libyan-flagged vessel used by a Malta-based humanitarian organisation implicated in a covert US arms smuggling operation to Syrian freedom fighter- A Libyan-flagged vessel which last year was used by a Malta-based humanitarian organisation in supplying a lifeline to rebels in Misurata, has been implicated in a covert US arms smuggling operation to Syrian freedom fighters, which may also be linked to murdered US ambassador Chris Stevens in Benghazi last month. The ship 'Al Entisar' which was chartered last year by I-Go Aid Libya, then run by businessman Mario Debono, has been reported to be linked to last September's attack on...

Earlier this week, Roger L. Simon of PJ Media broke a story with shocking revelations, contending that slain U.S. ambassador Chris Stevens was in Benghazi on September 11 to buy back Stinger missiles from al-Qaeda groups that had been originally provided to them by the U.S. State Department. Simon cited two former U.S. diplomats: Stevens’ mission in Benghazi, they will say, was to buy back Stinger missiles from al-Qaeda groups issued to them by the State Department, not by the CIA. Such a mission would usually be a CIA effort, but the intelligence agency had opposed the idea because of...

Throughout this year, as fighting intensified in Syria and antigovernment fighters grew in numbers and in strength, it had seemed inevitable that they would acquire heat-seeking shoulder-fired missiles and turn them against the Syrian military aircraft. This blog had documented the part-by-part appearance in rebel hands of one old heat-seeking system, known as the SA-7. Since midsummer there have been occasional sightings of full systems but none, as far as we know, showing the system in actual use. Two videos recently posted on YouTube suggest that what had been expected is now occurring. The first video, embedded below and posted...

....Even before the attack on the U.S. compound, according to an Oct. 2, 2012 report in The Washington Post, the White House held a series of secret meetings that came out of a growing concern that "al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb" (AQIM) was gaining strength after it took control of the northern parts of the African state of Mali, where it created a new Afghan-like sanctuary. In the last year it has begun to spread its influence across the Sahara. AQIM's weaponry came from post-Gadhafi Libya, whose arsenal was boosting the arms trade from Morocco to Sinai. Israeli sources have...

Experts Fear Looted Libyan Arms May Find Way to Terrorists By C. J. CHIVERS Security analysts say the armed uprising in Libya poses a long-term security threat — that weapons looted from government stockpiles could circulate widely, including heat-seeking antiaircraft missiles that could be used against civilian airliners. Photographs and video from the uprising show civilians carrying a full array of what were once the Libyan military’s weapons — like the SA-7, an early-generation, shoulder-fired missile in the same family as the more widely known Stinger — that intelligence agencies have long worried could fall into terrorists’ hands. They also...

In the last few years, intelligence analysts have noted that very few portable anti-aircraft missiles have been discovered in any of the thousands of Taliban and al Qaeda weapons caches found in Afghanistan. It is generally believed, at least by the mass media, that there are thousands of these portable missiles, particularly the Russian SAM-7 (and some later versions) on the black market. Maybe, but not really. Part of the reason is that it is easy to track a missile, used in a successful attack on military or commercial aircraft, to the country (or even factory) or origin. For that...

JIDDAH, Saudi Arabia, Jun 19, 2002 (AP WorldStream via COMTEX) -- The weapons and explosives that detained al-Qaida suspects planned to use for terrorist attacks in Saudi Arabia were smuggled in from neighboring Yemen, a Saudi-owned newspaper reported Wednesday. The London-based Al-Hayat daily also said that one of the suspects, a Sudanese who is believed to be an al-Qaida cell leader, fled the kingdom through Iraq after firing an anti-aircraft missile at a U.S. warplane in Saudi Arabia in May. He apparently made his way to Sudan, which announced earlier this week he had been transferred from Sudan to...

A Sudanese man who approached U.S. officials claiming he belonged to al-Qaida and offering to spy for the CIA has been sentenced to seven years in prison, according to a newspaper report. Sudan's Al-Watan daily reported Sunday that the unidentified Sudanese man had offered his services to the CIA and contacted the U.S. embassy in Khartoum several times. He reportedly told U.S. officials that he had fought in Afghanistan and had information on some al-Qaida members who returned to Sudan from Afghanistan. The newspaper said the court had found that he had supplied the CIA with false reports because he...

(AP) — Some highlights from an FBI affidavit filed in federal court in New Jersey, outlining the alleged plot to smuggle a shoulder-launched missile into the United States: _Investigation began in December 2001, when a "cooperating witness" or informant under federal law enforcement control began talking with the alleged arms dealer, Hemant Lakhani, about obtaining anti-aircraft guns and missiles. The witness told Lakhani he was representing a Somali group that wanted to buy one missile initially "with a purchase of a greater number of missiles to follow." _Between Dec. 2001 and Aug. 13, 2003, more than 150 conversations between Lakhani...

MANAGUA, Nicaragua, March 20 - Raising tensions that have revived the politics and personalities of the cold war, the United States has suspended military assistance to Nicaragua because it has failed to move forward with the destruction of an arsenal of shoulder-launched antiaircraft missiles that the Bush administration considers a possible terrorist threat. American diplomats here said Friday that about $2.3 million in aid to the Nicaraguan Army had been suspended pending the destruction of the Soviet-made SA-7 missile systems. In Washington, a senior State Department official confirmed that "part of our security assistance is on hold" while an agreement...

THE WASHINGTON TIMES The Bush administration plans to send a high-level team to Nicaragua to protest Managua's failure to account for shoulder-fired missiles that could fall into the hands of Islamic terrorists, a senior U.S. official said yesterday. The United States has become increasingly worried about the fate of hundreds of Soviet-provided SA-7s like the ones used by terrorists in Kenya in 2002 to try to down an Israeli airliner. In that attack, the two missiles missed their target. The Nicaragua problem arose last month when a police sting, aided by U.S. officials, captured an SA-7 missile from four Nicaraguans...

The Mexican Attorney General's office thinks the "Zetas" gang (ex-army commandos and the muscle of the Gulf Drug Cartel) may have come into possession of the SA-7 Grail missile.

The State Department said yesterday it has asked Nicaragua to investigate whether its military is hiding stashes of SA-7 missiles capable of downing commercial airliners. The Nicaraguan government later announced it was conducting a "thorough investigation."

Nicaraguans seize missile during stingBy Rowan ScarboroughTHE WASHINGTON TIMESNicaraguan police, with U.S. assistance in a sting operation, thwarted black marketeers trying to sell SA-7 shoulder-fired missiles capable of downing commercial aircraft earlier this month, raising fears that some missiles already have been sold to terrorists, The Washington Times has learned.     U.S. officials think the missiles are being provided by elements of the Nicaraguan military. One official said intelligence reports suggest Nicaraguan army elements are keeping a secret stash of SA-7s not inventoried by international inspectors.

WASHINGTON, Jan. 11 - The United States and Russia are close to signing an agreement to help control the trafficking of shoulder-fired antiaircraft missiles, a weapon highly prized by terrorists, the Russian defense minister said during a visit here on Tuesday. The minister, Sergei B. Ivanov, said the deal had been negotiated rapidly during the past several months, and he predicted that "this agreement is sure to be signed pretty soon." During a joint news conference, neither Mr. Ivanov nor Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld provided details on the agreement. Mr. Ivanov, however, broadly indicated that the agreement would call...

Jan 17, 8:14 PM (ET) NEW YORK (Reuters) - Iraqi guerrillas are using increasingly sophisticated weapons and tactics to attack U.S. aircraft, according to a classified Army study on the downing of helicopters in Iraq, The New York Times reported in Sunday editions. Citing senior Army officials in Iraq and the Gulf who were familiar with the study, the newspaper reported that at least one advanced missile was used by insurgents. Rebels have used rocket-propelled grenades and heat-seeking surface-to-air missiles, the latter which require a degree of skill, in the attacks. Scores of U.S. servicemen have died in recent months...

The United States is developing a laser weapon to defend against terror attacks like the shoulder-fired missile attack on an American helicopter Sunday. U.S. officials said Iraqi insurgents have been trained in the use of shoulder-fired SA-7 surface to air missiles which destroyed a Chinook helicopter over the weekend, killing 16 U.S. soldiers. The U.S. Air Force has been briefed on a system that could automatically detect an infrared surface-to-air missile launch and emit a laser beam to destroy the projectile. The system would be based on the Tactical High Energy Laser developed by Israel and the United States in...

<p>The U.S. military in Iraq is in the market for SA-7 shoulder-mounted, heat-seeking, surface-to-air missiles. They are offering a bounty of $500 for each SA-7 that someone turns in. Cash on the barrelhead; no questions asked.</p> <p>SA-7s are big trouble. They were designed by the Soviet Union in the 1970s and are capable of knocking a jumbo jet out of the sky at an altitude of 13,000 feet, from as far as five miles away, in as little as 13 seconds.</p>

US military officers on Friday claimed they had found an Iraqi FROG surface-to-surface missile and dozens of smaller surface-to-air missiles in western Iraq. Major Cory Mendenhall said a site with around 50 SA-7 and two SA-3 surface-to-air missiles, along with the FROG and a cache of warheads had been found yesterday with help from local residents. The major told AFP that ordnance teams would be brought in before anything was done to the missiles, and added that several dozen Iraqi army trucks and armoured vehicles had also been located and disabled. The FROG (Free Rocket Over Ground) is an unguided...

Series of EmergencyNet News Reports Concerning the Threat of Usage of Shoulder-fired Anti-aircraft Missiles: 31 May 2002 to 01 June 2002 From: ERRI DAILY INTELLIGENCE REPORT-ERRI Risk Assessment Services-Saturday, June 1, 2002-Vol. 8 - 152U.S. COUNTERTERRORISM OPERATIONS:U.S. Forces Capture Cache Of Portable Missiles In AfghanistanAFGHANISTAN: The Washington Times was reporting on Saturday that U.S. military forces in Afghanistan confiscated a cache of 30 anti-aircraft missiles as a new general took control of the U.S.- led campaign there. A Pentagon official said that the missiles were described as a Chinese-made version of the SA-7 surface-to-air missile. Disclosure of the missile...