The Canadian commander who leads NATO's mission in Libya says he's worried about the North African country's stockpile of surface-to-air missiles.
"There are many weapons left over in that country," Lt. Gen. Charles Bouchard told CTV's Question Period in an exclusive interview.
While a large portion of those are small arms, such as Kalashnikov rifles, others are surface-to-air missiles that Bouchard said "are of concern, and they will remain of concern throughout."
There are believed to be more than 20,000 shoulder-fired missiles in Libya, which Moammar Gadhafi had purchased over the years. The fear is that those weapons could wind up on the black market where terrorist groups could buy them.
Reports that thousands of the short-range missiles had gone missing began to surface in late September. NATO's top military officer, Adm. Giampaolo Di Paola, purportedly told German lawmakers that the alliance was unable to locate at least 10,000 of the deadly devices.
In response, the U.S. State Department dispatched 15 specialists to Libya to help locate the lost missiles, which can pose a threat to commercial aircraft.
There are also concerns about whether any dangerous materials remain from Gadhafi's defunct nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs, which the former dictator pledged to shutter after the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003.
Bouchard said the country's "chemical stocks" are being monitored.
"Actions have been taken to secure them. And in fact, several agencies are already working way ahead to destroy these stocks," he said from Naples, Italy.
Libya's interim government had secured the country's nuclear material and chemical weapons by late September, according to NATO. But according to a recent report in the Washington Post, since Gadhafi was ousted in August security officials in Egypt have been discovering surface-to-air missiles being smuggled near Sinai as well as the border with Gaza.
Bouchard said the responsibility to combat weapons smuggling falls to the new regime in Tripoli rather than to the alliance, which will officially end its Libya mission Oct. 31.
"When it comes to prevention of movement of arms and weapons, it's not something that the Operation Unified Protector mission can do with the forces that we have," he said.
"In fact, I would suggest to you that the (National Transitional Council) is now the legitimized government and it's their responsibility to safeguard their borders."
Russia has also been pushing the UN Security Council to adopt a resolution aimed at preventing Gadhafi's shoulder-fired missiles from landing in the hands of terrorists and other armed groups.
The issue has caught the attention of senior politicians in Ottawa. On Friday, Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird said Canada would help Libya handle the massive cache of weapons which had built up during Gadhafi's rule.
"The country is armed to the hilt and obvious that is not in the benefit of Libya or frankly the people of the world," Baird told Â鶹´«Ã½.
"There are weapons of mass destruction, seven warehouses of chemical weapons and obviously we don't those to fall into the wrong hands."
During a visit to Tripoli on Oct. 11, Baird pledged that Canada would contribute $10 million to help the new Libyan government recover Gadhafi's stockpiled weapons.
With files from The Associated Press
