August 13, 2003
The arrest of a British arms dealer, caught selling a missile capable of shooting down an airliner to undercover American agents, reflects well on cross-border intelligence co-ordination. But the black-market trade in such weaponry is worrying.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, America has spent billions of dollars to safeguard or dismantle Russia's vast stockpiles of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. But Russia's conventional weapons also pose a threat in the wrong hands, as events this week show. On Tuesday August 12th, a British arms dealer was arrested in New Jersey after trying to sell a surface-to-air missile that he had bought in Russia to undercover agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The man, named by the BBC as Hekmat Lakhani, reportedly said that the shoulder-held weapon could be used to shoot down a commercial jet—possibly even Air Force One, President George Bush's plane. Two other people were arrested in New York in connection with the operation.
Officials have been at pains to emphasise to jittery Americans that the missile never posed a threat. The operation to nab the arms dealer was carefully controlled from the outset, in what amounted to a double sting. Mr Lakhani bought the weapon in Russia under the watchful eye of both the Russian security service and the FBI. The FBI tracked the missile as it was shipped from Russia to Baltimore, Maryland. An FBI agent, posing as an Islamic extremist, then arranged to purchase the missile, and Mr Lakhani was arrested.
The degree of co-ordination among three intelligence services—Russian, British and American—has been called unprecedented. Rarely are Russia's security services—the FSB, successor to the KGB—known to work so closely with their former cold-war antagonists. Their co-operation in this case may be a product of the close relationship between Mr Bush and Russia's president, Vladimir Putin. For the intelligence services of America and Britain, close and successful collaboration on this case may help dispel accusations of poor intelligence-sharing surrounding both countries' assessments of Saddam Hussein's weapons threat.
The darker side of this week's sting is that it is a reminder of how many other dangerous missiles have fallen into the hands of shady dealers. Jane's, a defence monitoring service, reports that up to 27 terrorist and guerrilla groups around the world have laid hands on surface-to-air missiles, known as MANPADs (man-portable air defence systems). Many of these weapons, such as the Igla missile captured this week, are Russian-made. Others come from America. Stinger missiles—shoulder-held devices used to shoot down helicopters—were given by America to the mujahideen in Afghanistan in the 1980s to aid its fight against the Soviet Union. Many of these are sure to be on the black market still—costing as little as $5,000 each, according to a Jane's analyst. Selling them will be a temptation for poor, corrupt officials around the world.
Missiles are an unsettling prospect for commercial jets. The threat was demonstrated last November, when operatives believed to be part of al-Qaeda tried to shoot down a plane full of Israeli tourists as it took off from an international airport in Kenya. The attempt failed. But there have been a scattering of other, less-publicised attacks over the years on both military and civilian planes. The more sophisticated missiles are programmed to steer towards heat (such as that given off by a fuel-burning jet). They are most effective when fired at aircraft flying at low altitudes, as at take-off or landing
Can airlines be protected from missile attacks? Defence systems already exist for fighter jets but not for commercial aircraft. Installing these would be expensive—up to $3m per plane, according to a report in USA Today. Moreover, they are unlikely to be foolproof. Commercial planes are not as agile as military jets, and civilian pilots are not usually trained in evasion. Alarmed by last year's near-miss in Kenya, American inspectors have been visiting airports around the world to assess planes' vulnerability to missile attacks. They will also presumably look at the threat posed by rocket-propelled grenades, an older but still effective means of bringing down aircraft.
With terrorists conceivably able to lay hands on ever-more-advanced missiles, the key to defence clearly lies in prevention. Since the September 11th terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, governments such as Russia's have done more to crack down on the weapons threat. But events this week suggest they still have a lot more work to do. If a surface-to-air missile succeeds in bringing down a large commercial jet, even those who returned to the air after the September 11th attacks might never fly again.
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