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Qadaffi's regime had several thousand MANPAD systems prior to the civil war. As the regime fell, there was a vacuum left behind and lots of different militia groups all fighting for a piece of power. As we now know several of these groups had ties to terrorist organizations who would love to get their hands on those weapons.

Our best hope is that since most of the systems were older SA-7s that many of the batteries that power them were bad and the weapons were non-functional.

many of the batteries that power them were bad

I've seen a lot of comments on FR about this subject. Any reason why the ChiComs wouldn't reverse engineer and tool up to produce "service parts" ?

Well again. I have great respect for your service and expertise. I must ask you;however, are you saying that Qadaffi had “thousands” of Russian SA-7 shoulder fired MANPADS? I was not aware of that and find your explanation that they didn’t work fully believable because I don’t recall any “shoot downs” of foreign aircraft by Qadaffi — ever. I don’t recall any MAN PADS until the affiliate started shooting down his jets and helicopters at the end of the war. I just don’t recall Qaddafi firing ManPads but you must be right. If we were buying back SA-7s would they not be publicly touting that? Even if they didn’t work?
I speculate that we supplied American made stinger missles to the AlQaeda affiliates to shoot down Qadaffi air superiority because the French blocked repeatedly the “ no fly zone” Its my view that that would be treasonous after 9/11 but I sure respect where you are coming from.