Putin helps FBI to fight international terrorism
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Putin helps FBI to fight international terrorism
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Putin helps FBI to fight international terrorism
13 Aug 2003  printer version
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raiting (-2/4) A spokesman for the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) Sergei Ignatenko on Wednesday officially confirmed the report carried by all leading world news agencies that three men, including a UK citizen of Indian origin, were detained in the US on Tuesday on suspicion of illegal arms sales. The detained Briton together with his accomplices, members of a criminal group, intended to smuggle a Russian-made portable missile launcher, known as Igla, or SA-18, into the US with criminal purposes in mind, the FSB official told Russia RIA-Novosti news agency from Washington. "This was the first operation of its kind since the end of the Cold War, when our special services opposed each other," he said Special services of three countries - Russia, the USA and the UK, joined efforts to foil the terrorist plot. Igla missile is capable of hitting aircraft at altitudes up to 3,5 kilometers which means that it can be used to down a commercial airliner near an airport. Some media even suggested the criminal group intended to use it against the US President’s personal aircraft, Air Force One, but officials in Washington played down such suggestions. The Briton, who is the main suspect in the case, was arrested in Newark, New Jersey; and two others in New York City, officials in Washington said. The arrests were a result of an unprecedented sting operation, in which an undercover FSB agent acted as a seller of the missile in St Petersburg, while in the US the FBI is understood to have posed as Islamic terrorists prepared to buy the missile from the arms dealer. The British Broadcasting Corporation, which first reported the story, said the suspect was a British arms dealer who successfully imported the missile into the United States and believed he was selling it to a Muslim extremist. The buyer was in fact an undercover FBI agent and the arms dealer's voice is heard on tape saying he wanted the missile to be used to shoot down a large passenger plane. The FBI said it knew the missile, disguised as medical equipment, was shipped from Russia to Baltimore, Maryland, the BBC reported. The arms dealer, first spotted five months ago in St. Petersburg and Moscow, flew to New York with his wife on Sunday on a British Airways flight from London. He was followed by an FBI agent and arrested in New Jersey after he collected a package marked "medical supplies," the BBC said. The dealer is said to be a middle aged, married man of Indian origin who lives in London. He is likely to be charged with illegal arms trade rather than terrorism, media reports said. The BBC had revealed the Briton - who has not been named - was arrested at a hotel in Newark, New Jersey on Tuesday, after collecting a crate containing the missile. In truth, the weapons ‘sold’ to him by Russian agents had been modified by FSB experts so it could not be fired. Two more people were later picked up at a New York gem dealership. The BBC's correspondent in Washington, Justin Webb, said questions would be asked about whether the man would have been able to get as far as he did without the security services' encouragement. "He was stung both ways," he said. "By the Russians who fooled him into buying it and by the Americans who fooled him into selling it". Defense 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. Pike said the Igla was 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 Pike, the director of GlobalSecurity.org, a non-profit defense policy group based in suburban Washington. Igla is designed to meet or follow aircraft and can be used in temperate cold, arid or humid tropical climate conditions.The heat-seeking missile can travel at any angle and can be fired one by one or in groups at a given target. It is considered deadly accurate. Source: Other articles in People:  Readers' CommentsNo comments Add your commentary |
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