Leaked memos show US fears over Yemeni missiles

AFP via Google News ^ | 12/4/2010 | AFP via Google News

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

officials suspected Yemen had stocks of shoulder-fired missiles, a major concern if they fell in the wrong hands, while the Yemeni leader sought to use new-found leverage for US aid, secret memos said.

Although Yemen's Defense Ministry insisted it had no such cache of the weapons, an informant told US diplomats that the government agency in fact "does indeed have MANPADS, but would never speak of them because they are considered a state secret."

The embassy cable marked "secret" and dated August 4, 2009 also said that while Yemen "realizes their MANPADS are of little military value, they consider them better than nothing and would turn them over for destruction only if they were able to get a modern air defense system in return."

Man Portable Air Defense Systems (MANPADS) are shoulder-fired missiles designed to down aircraft, and were most famously used by Afghan fighters in the 1980s to shoot down helicopters and eventually drive out Soviet forces.

The cable was published by The New York Times as part of the release of over 250,000 State Department memos, most from the last three years, by whistleblower website WikiLeaks.

Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh meanwhile revelled in the attention he received from US officials as Al-Qaeda's branch in Yemen and its suspected US-born leader Anwar al-Awlaqi brought renewed scrutiny and worries about his country's instability.

[Redbob]

"...officials suspected Yemen had stocks of shoulder-fired missiles, a major concern if they fell in the wrong hands..."

If they're in Yemen, they've ALREADY fallen into the wrong hands.