Telegraph:<
The Libyan bombing campaign has allowed terrorist groups free access to some of Col Muammar Gaddafi's arms dumps and an Algerian official said that monitored shipments had made their way from Libya to al-Qaeda strongholds in the Sahara.
Eight Toyota pickup trucks crossed into Chad, across Niger and into northern Mali from desert armouries in eastern Libya. Algeria warned that al-Qaeda's North African wing, al Qaeda in the Islamic Magreb (AQIM), had seized shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles in Libya.
Intelligence reports said Russian-made anti-tank rocket-propelled grenades, Kalashnikov heavy machine guns, Kalashnikov rifles, explosives and ammunition were stacked on the pickups.
"A convoy of eight Toyotas full of weapons travelled a few days ago through Chad and Niger and reached northern Mali," the official said.
"We know that this is not the first convoy and that it is still ongoing. Several military barracks have been pillaged in this region [eastern Libya] with their arsenals and weapons stores and the elements of AQIM who were present could not have failed to profit from this opportunity."
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It is not clear why we are not bombing these convoys of al Qaeda. One of the problems of the air only strategy is that there is no one on the ground to secure the weapons depots. Our commanders should have come up with a way to defend them, even with just air power.
Posted by Merv
Image via Wikipedia
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