Tripoli, Apr 5 (ANI): Militant Islamist group Al-Qaeda is using the ongoing Libyan conflict to acquire weapons, including surface-to-air missiles, which is heightening fears that they could shoot down a passenger plane in the Mediterranean.
An Algerian security official said the missiles are being smuggled to bases in Mali and he raised the prospect of fanatical Osama Bin Laden supporters targeting passenger planes with shoulder-fired missiles.
The official revealed that a convoy of eight Toyota pick-up trucks left Libya, crossed into Chad and then Niger, and reached Mali where the weapons have been delivered.
The smuggled weapons include Russian-made RPG-7 anti-tank, rocket-propelled grenades, heavy machine guns, Kalashnikov rifles, explosives and ammunition.
He also said the organization's north African wing, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), had acquired from Libya Russian-made shoulder-fired Strela surface-to-air missiles.
"A convoy full of weapons a few days ago reached Mali. We know it is not the first convoy," The Daily Express quoted the official, as saying.
"Several barracks have been pillaged in Libya for their weapons. AQIM could not have failed to profit from this," he added.
The anti-Gaddafi rebels in Libya deny any ties to Al Qaeda. But US Admiral James Stavridis said that intelligence showed "flickers" of an Al Qaeda presence in Libya.
The security official warned that if Gaddafi falls, so too will border security "long enough for AQIM to re-deploy as far as the Libyan Mediterranean". (ANI)
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