National Post (Canada) August 10, 2003
Plot to smuggle missile into U.S. to shoot jet foiled: International sting operation nabs British arms dealer
SOURCE: CanWest News Service, with files from news services
By Mary Vallis
WASHINGTON - A suspected British arms dealer has been arrested in the United States for trying to sell a surface-to-air missile capable of bringing down a passenger plane to a person he thought was a Muslim extremist.
British and Russian law enforcement agencies worked with the FBI for months, tracking the man's movements and snaring him in a sting operation.
U.S. authorities said the Briton believed he was selling missiles to would-be terrorists but the buyer was an undercover FBI agent. The arms dealer's voice is heard on tape saying he wanted the missile to be used to shoot down a large passenger plane. One report said the purported target for the shoulder-fired missile was the U.S. President's Air Force One, but the FBI denied this.
The British Broadcasting Corporation, which first reported the story with ABC News, said the suspect successfully imported a Russian Igla missile into the U.S. and believed he was selling it to a Muslim extremist.
The Igla missile has a four-kilometre range and infrared capability and is believed to have been responsible for the downing last year in Chechnya of a Russian troop-carrying helicopter.
The Briton was arrested in Newark, N.J., and two others were later arrested in New York, officials in Washington said.
The arms dealer, believed to be a middle-aged man of Indian descent, was first spotted five months ago in St. Petersburg and Moscow. He bought one missile for $85,000 from corrupt middle management at a Russian factory and had been promised another 50, a source told a BBC correspondent.
Vladimir Putin, the Russian President, authorized the FBI to have an undercover agent sent to Russia to work with the Russian secret service, FSB.
On Sunday, the arms dealer flew to New York with his wife on a British Airways flight from London but was arrested after he collected a package marked "medical supplies," the BBC said.
The FBI said it knew the missile, disguised as medical equipment, was shipped from Russia to Baltimore, Md., the BBC reported.
However, a law enforcement source told CNN the missile was successfully smuggled in on a ship that went from Russia to New Jersey. The source said the man was in the United States to complete the transaction and pick up his payment.
Defence expert John Pike called the Igla a "Russian version of the Stinger," referring to the small U.S. shoulder-launched missile designed for attacking aircraft at low altitude -- possibly during take-off or landing. Mr. Pike said the Igla is an improved version of earlier Russian-made surface-to-air missiles and would have a better chance of bringing down a passenger jet than its predecessors.
"It has a longer range and a more sophisticated heat-seeking sensor on it," said Mr. Pike, the director of GlobalSecurity.org, a non-profit defence policy group.
Concerns about terrorists using shoulder-fired missiles to take down commercial airlines intensified in November after an unsuccessful attack on a chartered Israeli jet in Mombasa, Kenya. The incident coincided with a suicide bombing at a nearby hotel. Al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for that attack.
A spokeswoman for the FBI's national press office refused to give details about the case yesterday, saying the court records were sealed.
© Copyright 2003, National Post
