Reports that tens of thousands of missiles have disappeared in Libya and may end up in the wrong hands are being "taken extremely seriously," a senior NATO military official said on Monday, DPA reported.
On the weekend, German weekly Der Spiegel reported that Italian Admiral Giampaolo Di Paola, chair of the panel of NATO national defence chiefs, briefed the German parliament confidentially that 10,000 missiles were unaccounted for.
"The issue is being taken extremely seriously by those nations who can monitor that sort of activity," the NATO source said. "Even the notion that these missiles are out there and are not accounted for we take seriously," it added.
NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said he could not comment on the specific case, but conceded that "it is a matter of concern if stockpiles of weapons are not ... controlled and monitored."
He recalled that under the United Nations Security Council resolution 2009, approved last month, Libya's new authorities should "ensure that weapons are secured, controlled or destroyed in an appropriate fashion and should strive to open their country to international monitors."
Rasmussen also dismissed the suggestion, fuelled by a recent interview given to the Associated Press by the top US general in Africa, Carter Ham, that NATO defence ministers meeting this week in Brussels would decide to end airstrikes over Libya.
"We are pretty close to the end ... we will not continue for one single day more than necessary, so we stand ready to terminate the operation as soon as the situation allows, but I would not expected that decision to be taken during the defence ministers' meeting," he said.