Systems for air defense threaten jets

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — In Libya, militias armed with shoulder-launched missiles are battling for control of the country’s main airport. In Africa, the Sahel region is awash in weapons that include portable air defense systems left over from the ouster of Moammar Gadhafi.

Then there’s Syria’s civil war, in which thousands of soldiers have defected and set up new battalions that have shot down military helicopters and jets. And in Iraq, the al-Qaida breakaway group that has taken swaths of territory seized weapons depots all along the way.

The world is pockmarked with volatile hot spots stretching from West Africa to Central Asia — a wide arc where commercial flights and airline passengers could be at risk from ground-based weapons. Although counterterrorism and weapons experts say the skies are largely safe, the downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 illustrates the dangers inherent in any flight over unstable territory where sophisticated weapons might be available to militants.

On Tuesday, those risks were underscored by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, which told American airlines they were prohibited from flying to the Tel Aviv airport in Israel for at least 24 hours following the explosion of a rocket fired from Hamas-ruled Gaza in the war between Palestinians and the Jewish state.

The FAA has also prohibited flights in Libya, northern Ethiopia, North Korea and the eastern Ukraine Crimea region, and prohibited flights below a certain altitude in Iraq and Somalia.

The Malaysia Airlines jet was destroyed last week by a sophisticated surface-to-air missile as the plane cruised at an altitude of 33,000 feet above rebel-held battlefields in eastern Ukraine. All 298 people aboard were killed.

Some 50 to 60 countries around the world possess radar-guided high-altitude missile systems like the one that shot down the Boeing 777, said John Pike, director of globalsecurity.org, a military information website.

Countries on the FAA’s prohibited list that likely possess the kind of missile that brought down the Malaysian jet are North Korea, Israel and Ethiopia, Pike said. But those countries have armies that are in control of their arsenal.