Special to WorldTribune.com
WASHINGTON — The United States has reported the start of the
destruction of Libya’s shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles.
The State Department said U.S. inspectors have overseen the destruction
of hundreds of missiles in Libya. Officials said the destruction represented
a $30 million program to track, intercept and destroy surface-to-air
missiles from the arsenal of the late Libyan ruler Moammar Gadhafi.
“We’ve destroyed a number of MANPADS [man-portable, air defense
systems], in the hundreds, I think,” State Department spokesman Mark Toner
said.
In a briefing on Oct. 20, Toner said the U.S. destruction of the Libyan
surface-to-air missiles was conducted in cooperation with the Libyan
National Transitional Council. He said Washington has sought to help the
interim government launch a concerted effort to find thousands of missiles
and other weapons that disappeared from Gadhafi warehouses.
“We’re going to continue to work with them moving forward,” Toner said.
The United States has assessed that Gadhafi controlled an arsenal of
20,000 SAMs, most of them SA-7s and SA-14s. The State Department said Libya
was also believed to have 400 Scud B ballistic missiles.
“One of the major challenges facing the Transitional National Council
is, moving forward, is to establish a command and control over all of these
militias, get them under one, single unified command moving forward,” Toner
said.

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