Anti-aircraft missiles part of caches dug up in Algeria

Algerian security services have found two caches of weapons, including 43 anti-aircraft missiles, near the Libyan border.

The French-language daily El Watan yesterday quoted unidentified security officials as saying the missiles were discovered recently near the town of In Amenas in southern Algeria.

One cache included Russian-designed SA-24 anti-aircraft missiles and a shoulder-fired SAM-7 from the arsenal of Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi.

According to US figures, Libya amassed about 20,000 shoulder-fired anti-aircraft weapons, the largest such stockpile in a non-producing country.

In October, the UN Security Council urged Libyan authorities to do all they could from keeping these missiles from falling into terrorist hands. It is feared that such groups might use the missiles to attack civil aviation.

Thousands of the weapons are believed to have gone missing when militias overthrew the Gaddafi regime and helped themselves to government stockpiles.

Algerian authorities have long warned that weapons from Libya’s civil war could fall into terrorist hands, including the local branch of al-Qaeda, which is active in northern Algeria as well as in the desert wastes straddling the borders to the south.

According to El Watan, authorities discovered the caches thanks to information from smugglers in the remote region.