Three up for missile smuggling
2003-08-13 18:44
Newark, New Jersey - Three men, including one Briton, were set to appear in US federal court Wednesday on charges of allegedly trying to smuggle Russian shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles into the United States.
The British national of Indian origin - identified in the British press as Hemad Lakhani - was arrested on Tuesday in Newark as part of an international sting operation run by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, in conjunction with the British and Russian authorities.
Lakhani was taken into custody by undercover FBI agents who he apparently believed to be al-Qaeda operatives planning to shoot down an airliner on US soil.
Newark's Star-Ledger newspaper cited law enforcement sources as saying Lakhani would be charged with material support of terrorism and weapons smuggling.
The two other suspects were arrested in New York on suspicion of laundering money for the arms deal.
Details emerging Wednesday of the sting operation suggested that the entire arms deal had been compromised by law enforcement agencies from its very inception several years ago.
Undercover FBI agents, working with the knowledge of their British counterparts, reportedly approached Lakhani after hearing that he was looking for customers interested in purchasing Russian shoulder-fired SA-18 missiles.
Undercover
Russian federal agents became involved when Lakhani sought to purchase a single SA-18 from Russian arms dealers as an advance against a larger shipment in the future.
The Russians supplied a deactivated missile which was then shipped to the United States, where Lakhani was finally arrested as he sought to complete the deal with the undercover FBI personnel.
British police said on Wednesday that anti-terrorist officers searched two sites in London at the request of US authorities.
Britain's Press Association said one of the addresses, in north London, was Lakhani's home.
Recent US intelligence reports have warned of a possible terrorist attack using small heat-seeking missiles, following several near misses outside the United States.
Officials began to focus on the threat from shoulder-mounted missiles in November, when unknown assailants narrowly missed an Israeli charter flight taking off from Mombasa, Kenya.
Al-Qaeda
In May, another missile missed a US military jet taking off from Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia.
Al-Qaeda is suspected in both attacks.
In Iraq last month, a US C-130 military transport plane came under fire from a surface-to-air missile as it landed at Baghdad's airport.
The United States has drastically tightened security at domestic airports since the September 11, 2001 attacks with four hijacked airliners. The attacks by al-Qaeda destroyed New York's twin World Trade Centre towers, damaged the Pentagon military headquarters outside Washington and killed more than 3 000 people.
The best-known portable missiles are the American-made Stinger and the Russian-made SA-7. The Stinger was supplied by the United States to Afghan groups fighting Soviet invaders in the 1980s, and some of the missiles may have fallen into al-Qaeda hands.
Aviation officials have said the missiles can hit jets from as far as 8km away and can reach altitudes of about 3 000m.
A US congressional report this year estimated that the worldwide inventory of portable surface-to-air missiles probably exceeds 500,000 and may be as high as 700 000. - Sapa-AFP
- SAPA