Missiles Looted From Tripoli Arms Warehouse

CNN/theindychannel.com ^ | September 7, 2011 | Ben Wedeman and Ingrid Formanek

[Abathar]

TRIPOLI, Libya (CNN) -- A potent stash of Russian-made surface-to-air missiles is missing from a huge Tripoli weapons warehouse amid reports of weapons looting across war-torn Libya.

They are Grinch SA-24 shoulder-launched missiles, also known as Igla-S missiles, the equivalent of U.S.-made Stinger missiles.

[snip]

Grinch SA-24s are designed to target front-line aircraft, helicopters, cruise missiles and drones. They can shoot down a plane flying as high as 11,000 feet and can travel 19,000 feet straight out.

[Abathar]

Just great. With our border as insecure as it is with Mexico I bet Al Qaeda is just drooling about the possibilities...

[Red Badger]

It’s Christmas for somebody who stole Grinches..............

[Abathar]

Whoa, blew that didn’t I.

[Abathar]

Christmas with all the holiday flights is the first thing I thought of.

[Noumenon]

The looting of the Libyan armories may well have been the real reason for the ‘revolution’.

[Red Badger]

They may be ‘aiming’ for the 9/11 anniversary...................

[dljordan]

“The looting of the Libyan armories may well have been the real reason for the ‘revolution’.”

I’m finding it hard t believe that NATO didn’t know about the warehouse and put a few bombs on it.

[gandalftb]

The rebels have been acquiring them since February. All of them are vehicle mounted. The recently looted SA-24 are reloads for those vehicle mounted launchers and most likely were stolen by retreating mercenaries.

The SA-24 has a shelf life and takes some training to be able to launch. The truck-mounted launchers can't be used with man-portable gripstocks. It is also a crew-served weapon.

If they were operational Qaddafi would have used them. However the C-4 warheads could be used separately.

[Abathar]

Thanks for the info. They compared them to stingers so I assumed they were man-portable. They also mentioned the SA-7, which I know is outdated and shoulder fired so I assumed the newer model SA-24 was as well.

[McGruff]

Thank you John McCain.

[gandalftb]

The Ruskies have been under considerable scrutiny not to sell them to bad guys. But there is always resellers. The Ruskies sold a few man-portables to Venezuela and we have lost track of them, rumors that some ended up in MX with the cartels and that is why Los Federales are skittish about doing raids.

The SA-24 would be warmly received in some places and would certainly show up in Afghanistan quickly if they were on the open market. BTW, SA-7s are all over, I'm not flying on 9/11........