Tripoli, Sept 8 (ANI): Human Rights Watch has reportedly discovered many sites in Libya where surface-to-air missiles are missing, raising concerns that the weapons could arm an Iraq-style insurgency if it falls into wrong hands.
As Libya's National Transitional Council (NTC) started searching for fallen Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's war machine, they are quickly learning that some choice pieces of his vast stockpile of mines, mortars, and explosives are missing, the Christian Science Monitor reports.
Reports suggest that thousands of shoulder-held surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) have gone missing at newly discovered weapons-storage sites.
At one unguarded facility, empty packing crates and documents reveal that 482 sophisticated Russian SA-24 missiles were shipped to Libya in 2004, and now are no where to be found. With a range of 11,000 feet, the SA-24 is Moscow's modern version of the American "stinger," which in the 1980s helped the US-backed Afghan mujahideen turn their war against the Soviet Union, the paper added.
Peter Bouckaert, the emergencies Director of Human Rights Watch (HRW), who has brought a number of weapons-storage sites to the NTC's attention, said that: "If these weapons fall in the wrong hands, all of North Africa will be a no-fly zone. That's the Western concern."
"But what poses the biggest danger to Libyan people - as we know from Iraq - is what's laying right behind you ... all of these tank shells and mortars, because that's what people turn into car bombs," he added.
It was reported earlier in the day that Gaddafi had made a phone call to a local TV station, vowing to defeat the rebels and NATO, as a home video emerged of him playing with his family.
Gaddafi said he was not giving up and that the "resistance against the rats" would be escalated.
"The youths are now ready to escalate the resistance against the 'rats' (rebels) in Tripoli and to finish off the mercenaries. We will defeat NATO...and NATO is rejected by the Libyan people," he added. (ANI)
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