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Politics : Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: stockman_scott who wrote (25360)	8/13/2003 6:54:44 PM
From: Karen Lawrence	Respond to of 89467

Yes, scary: Aug. 13 — One month before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Chechen separatists shot down a Russian helicopter with an Igla surface-to-air missile. It is one of the only known cases of terrorists using this weapon. But with the breakup of an alleged missile smuggling operation, there are now widespread fears that terrorists are getting their hands on more lethal weapons. "The range and the sophistication of some of these new weapons and availability of them is scary," said Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., chairman of the aviation subcommittee in the House. And the SA-18 Igla, Russian for "needle," is one of the scariest. It is this kind of missile that authorities arrested a British national Tuesday for allegedly trying to bring into the United States. Coming in From the Cold War Developed in the late 1980s in the final years of the Cold War, it is the most sophisticated portable surface-to-air missile the Soviets ever made. Using heat seekers, it can shoot down an aircraft three miles away. And it is better than other missiles terrorists are known to have used previously. For example, the SA-7 — which was used in an attempted attack against an Israeli passenger plane in Kenya last November — has to be launched from behind an aircraft to lock-in on the engines' hot exhaust. But the Igla can lock-in on a target from any angle, making it much more deadly. A Real War of Terrorism? "To use something like an Igla, as a terrorist, would be stepping up your terrorist war to a different level," said Jim O'Halloran, an expert with Jane's Defence. "You would certainly be going up to almost a wartime level." Intelligence experts believe there could be hundreds of perhaps thousands of Igla missiles available on the black market, selling for as little as $25,000. But there are probably very few terrorists trained to fire them. "It is not just a matter of getting two or three guys together who want to [use] it," said weapons analyst Larry Johnson. "It requires them getting them together with people who are trained on the systems, who've had a chance to operate it." Although military planes have sophisticated defense systems that can draw the missiles away from the aircraft, the Igla system is not easily jammed electronically. And most passenger planes have no defense systems at all, which makes them very vulnerable. The Soviets built the Igla missiles at the same time the United States built Stinger missiles, which were used effectively against the Soviet Union during its war in Afghanistan. The Igla is not as accurate as the Stinger but experts said they are firmly in second place. abcnews.go.com