Gadhafi’s weapons flooded Africa, Middle East as the West looked for missiles

The Obama administration and other Western governments ignored warnings about small arms and explosives being smuggled out of liberated Libya — weapons that now have fallen into the hands of al-Qaeda-linked militants waging war across North Africa, analysts say.

Western officials have focused too intently on shoulder-fired missiles, which could be used to shoot down civilian aircraft, and lacked resources to track the myriad of arms making their way to Mali, Algeria, Tunisia and other countries, they say.

“Throughout 2011, we were raising the alarm bell with the U.S. government, and they were very interested in talking to us about the missing surface-to-air-missiles, but they were singularly uninterested in what would happen with the more run-of-the-mill weapons,” said Peter Bouckaert, Geneva-based emergencies director at Human Rights Watch. “It’s a bit sad they haven’t learned a lesson from Iraq.”

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