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Weaponry up for grabs in Tripoli

Missiles, mines left unsecured in capital

Large mortar shells sit unguarded, and boxes that once held anti-aircraft missiles and other heavy weapons are strewn about arms depots around Tripoli on Wednesday. (Associated Press)
Ben Hubbard Associated Press

TRIPOLI, Libya – Crates of mortar shells sit unguarded and empty boxes for missiles to blow up tanks and bring down airplanes are strewn about arms depots around the Libyan capital.

Former rebels say they took some ammunition for the fight against Moammar Gadhafi, but U.S. officials and others have expressed fears Libya’s weapons could fall into the wrong hands.

The six-month civil war that ended Gadhafi’s 42-year rule and sent him into hiding also threw open the gates to his regime’s extensive armories. The country’s new leaders, who are struggling to establish a government, have failed to secure many of the caches, making them free game for looters, former rebel fighters or anyone with a truck to carry them away.

Since Gadhafi’s fall last month, American and U.N. officials have warned that the failure to control Libya’s weapons could destabilize the whole of North Africa.

Last week, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called on Libya’s new leaders to secure the ousted regime’s weapons.

Visits by the Associated Press to weapons caches around Tripoli show that many remain poorly guarded and have already been heavily looted. About a dozen rebels wandered around one site the AP visited on Wednesday, where a large hangar was strewn with the boxes of missing weapons.

It remains unclear how many weapons have been uncovered in Tripoli since Gadhafi’s fall, said Peter Bouckaert of Human Rights Watch, who has been searching the city for them.

Lots of munitions appear to have been hidden in civilian buildings to avoid airstrikes by NATO, which bombed regime military targets under a United Nations mandate to protect civilians.

At one unguarded site, Bouckaert said he found 100,000 anti-tank and anti-personnel mines. Elsewhere, he found weapons caches hidden under fruit trees.

“The problem is that the locals usually find out first and by the time we arrive and we can get some guards there, a lot of the most dangerous weapons have already been taken away,” he said.

A green sign at the entrance of a site the AP visited Wednesday said the facility belonged to the Libyan Education Ministry. The large hangar was strewn with hundreds of crates of mortars and tank shells.

Empty boxes of rifle ammunition and the anti-aircraft guns the former rebels fixed to the backs of trucks to fight Gadhafi’s soldiers were scattered on the floor. Among them were dozens of long skinny boxes for missiles – all of them empty.

Numbered codes on the boxes and packing slips inside indicated some were Russian-made anti-tank missiles. Others held shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles designed to bring down airplanes, helicopters or drones.

Bouckaert said the missing missiles could be used to down airplanes.

“If these weapons start flooding around, it’s an absolute disaster for commercial flights in this region,” he said.

Neither of the warehouses the AP visited had traces of chemical weapons, and Bouckaert said he’d seen no evidence of chemical weapons in his search. The U.N. chief weapons watchdog said Wednesday that Libya’s remaining chemical weapon stockpiles are believed to be secure.