Tunisian police arrest Libyan transporting munitions

TUNIS | Wed May 11, 2011

TUNIS (Reuters) - Tunisian police arrested a Libyan man in a car packed with Kalashnikov rifle cartridges on Wednesday in the south of the country, 80 km (50 miles) from the border with Libya.

A police officer at the scene also said by telephone that authorities had also arrested a second man, an Algerian, who was transporting grenades. It appeared the vehicles were traveling from Libya.

There were no further details on the separate arrests in the southern town of Bir Amir but Arab and Western officials have said that Al Qaeda could be exploiting the Libyan conflict to acquire weapons and smuggle them into other countries.

A senior security official in neighboring Algeria told Reuters last month there were signs Al Qaeda was at work to acquire surface-to-air missiles and other arms to smuggle them to a stronghold in northern Mali.

The Algerian official described a convoy of Toyota pick-up trucks which had left eastern Libya and arrived in Mali after it crossed through Chad and Niger.

In that case the trucks unloaded Russian-made RPG-7 anti-tank rocket-propelled grenades, Kalashnikov heavy machine guns, Kalashnikov rifles, explosives and ammunition.

(Reporting by Tarek Amara, Writing by Sylvia Westall; editing by Elizabeth Piper)

Source: Reuters.
Link: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/11/us-tunisia-libya-arrest-idUSTRE74A2OX20110511.