Special to WorldTribune.com

WASHINGTON — The U.S. intelligence community has concluded that a huge amount of weapons from Libya was transferred to Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaida-aligned militias.

Officials said the Brotherhood has acquired U.S. weapons and military equipment stolen from Libyan Army bases.

The officials said the equipment could include night-vision and even armored vehicles.

“All of the U.S. equipment brought in over the last few months has been stolen, and most of it was sold abroad,” an official said. “There is evidence that the Brotherhood has bought some of it.”

Officials said the Egyptian Defense Ministry has shared information with the U.S. Defense Department on American weapons captured in raids of Brotherhood and Al Qaida-aligned militias in the Sinai Peninsula and the African mainland. They said Egypt has found evidence that some of the insurgents were already using night-vision goggles for attacks on critical infrastructure, including the Suez Canal.

On Oct. 5, Egyptian authorities announced the arrest of a suspect in a rocket-propelled grenade attack on a state-owned satellite facility in
Cairo. The attack, attributed to the Brotherhood, was the first in which an RPG was fired in Cairo since the ouster of Egypt’s first Islamist president in July 2013.

The American equipment stolen from Libya was to have been used for
training by the U.S. Special Forces Command. In September, the U.S. network
Fox News reported that dozens of GMV armored vehicles, fitted with advanced
navigation systems and smoke-grenade launchers, went missing from Libya.

“Along with the GMV’s, hundreds of weapons are now missing, including
roughly 100 Glock pistols and more than 100 M-4 rifles,” Fox said on Sept.
2. “More disturbing, according to the sources, is that it seems almost every
set of night-vision goggles has also been taken. This is advanced technology
that gives very few war fighters an advantage on the battlefield.”

Officials said the U.S. military has lost track of most of its equipment
in Libya. They acknowledged that most military and security personnel were
withdrawn from Libya amid Al Qaida-aligned militia attacks in Benghazi and
other parts of the country.

“Ironically, all of this equipment was brought in to help train the
Libyan military,” another official said. “Instead, it is going to the
highest bidder and could destabilize neighboring Egypt and Tunisia.”

  armored vehicles, Egyptian Defense Ministry, Glock pistonls, More Libyan fallout: Intel finds advanced U.S. weapons were ‘stolen, night-vision goggles, Sinai Peninsula, sold abroad’