Published on 12:00 AM, March 26, 2011

Al-Qaeda snatched missiles in Libya: Chad president

Al-Qaeda's offshoot in North Africa has snatched surface-to-air missiles from an arsenal in Libya during the civil strife there, Chad's president said in an interview to be published Monday.
Idriss Deby Itno did not say how many were stolen, but told the African weekly Jeune Afrique that he was "100 percent sure" of his assertion.
"The Islamists of Al Qaeda took advantage of the pillaging of arsenals in the rebel zone to acquire arms, including surface-to-air missiles, which were then smuggled into their sanctuaries in Tenere," a desert region of the Sahara that stretches from northeast Niger to western Chad, Deby said in the interview.