WASHINGTON — A State Department envoy assigned to reduce the worldwide supply of shoulder-fired missiles said Tuesday that missiles traded on the black market remain a potential threat to civilian aircraft.
In his first public comments since beginning the effort six months ago, Lincoln P. Bloomfield Jr. said that there is a total of about 500,000 missiles of the type that have been used to shoot down 28 civilian planes since the 1970s, killing 600 to 800 people.
Even though the U.S. government is spending millions of dollars to buy up missiles and help other nations secure their stockpiles, Bloomfield acknowledged that the effort is not likely to eliminate the threat anytime soon.
Speaking at the Nixon Center, a think tank in Washington, Bloomfield said he wished he could report that the threat is subsiding.
But "it's not like that at all. . . . The job is not largely done."
World leaders have been increasingly concerned about the threat of the weapons since the 1980s, when U.S.-built Stingers fired by Afghan rebels shot down hundreds of Soviet aircraft, turning the course of their war against Moscow's occupation.
Such missiles also were built in Russia and China.
The weapons have posed a threat to U.S.-led forces in Iraq, where they were stockpiled by Saddam Hussein.
They also have been widely used in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the Horn of Africa and the Balkans, Bloomfield said.
U.S. officials have expressed concern that some may have fallen into the hands of the leftist rebel group the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.
Israeli officials are concerned that they may be in the possession of Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip.
The danger was highlighted in December 2002, when two SA-7 missiles were fired at an Israeli charter plane carrying 271 tourists to Tel Aviv from Mombasa, Kenya. The missiles are believed to have been fired by Al Qaeda-linked Somali terrorists.
The missiles missed the plane, but the attack had a devastating economic effect on Kenya. The country's tourism revenue dropped 25%, and the nation's gross domestic product decreased 3% to 4%, Bloomfield said.
U.S. authorities say they have seen no evidence of an increased threat to aircraft in the United States, but the Department of Homeland Security has been looking into whether effective and economical protective devices could be added to U.S. civilian aircraft.
