The ousted leader’s troops left behind thousands of automatic rifles, handguns, ammunition and explosives when they fled the Libyan capital and its environs last month. Many arms - including surface-to-air missiles - have already disappeared.

A Reuters reporter saw at least half a dozen empty 9M342 and 9M32 Russian-made surface-to-air missile crates lying among hundreds of unguarded tank rounds and other explosives on Tuesday. It was not clear who took the missiles or when.

“This is exactly what we’re worried about,” Peter Bouckaert, emergencies director at Human Rights Watch, said after visiting the same site, located near a base once used by the Khamis Brigade, reputed to be Qaddafi’s best-equipped security force.

“There are all these unguarded munitions facilities, and anyone can go in with a pickup or an 18-wheeler and take whatever they want.”

The accessibility of heavy weapons in Libya since the uprising against Qaddafi erupted in February has alarmed Western officials who believe militant Islamic groups or rebels in neighboring countries could obtain them.

There is also a chance that regime loyalists or others unhappy with the country’s National Transitional Council (NTC) could use the arms to wage a guerilla war. Landmines and unexploded munitions could kill or maim civilians in the conflict’s aftermath.

“It is a worry and needs to be secured. Failure to do so in Iraq made the insurgents and militia quartermasters’ jobs a lot easier,” said Benjamin Barry, a former British army brigadier and Senior Fellow for Land Warfare at Britain’s International Institute for Strategic Studies.

“But the NTC ought to be able to work out for themselves that the greatest threat posed by these unguarded dumps is the security and stability of Libya.”

Across the road from the weapons dump, stacks of anti-personnel mines lay in a dirt lot under camouflage netting in the blistering summer sun. Piles of mattresses, pillows, food tins and water bottles spilled from a small building nearby.

Six mines were packed into each box and, while it was difficult to get an exact count, there appeared to be thousands of crates. Messages in Arabic written on the walls around the lot warned visitors to be careful of the explosives.

Ahmed Shibani, one of a group of Libyans working with the country’s interim rulers who arrived around midday to survey the site, said the mines would be moved and stored, but that it would take at least a week.

“The remaining boxes could be booby-trapped. We’ll check it out, and then we’ll move it and store it in a safe place,” he said.

At the main site, a series of unattended breeze-block warehouses were packed with hundreds of green boxes of missiles, tank rounds and other explosives. Many crates had been emptied.

The entrance to the site was protected only by a small metal fence leaned against a barrel. Cars sped down the road outside, and there were no guards in the area.

Munitions of the type abandoned in Libya could be converted to car bombs or other weapons to wage a guerrilla war in the country or could wind up fueling insurgencies in neighboring countries, Bouckaert of Human Rights Watch said.

“It takes just a few tank rounds to make an extremely powerful car bomb that can take down a building or explode a market.”

QADDAFI FONDNESS FOR MISSILES

Bouckaert also drew comparisons to Iraq, where storehouses left by fleeing troops loyal to Saddam Hussein after the 2003 American-led invasion were looted and used by militants to make suicide bombs.

The proliferation of surface-to-air missiles in Libya has worried Western security agencies who believe they could be used to target commercial airliners.

On Monday, the European Union’s counter-terrorism chief said there was a risk Al-Qaeda had already secured arms and ammunition looted in the Libyan conflict, including surface-to-air missiles.

Some empty boxes seen by Reuters were marked as having contained 9M342 missiles, which experts said were associated with the Igla-S, also known as the SA-24 Grinch - the latest version of the Russian Igla surface-to-air weapons.

Others were marked 9M32, an industrial index number associated with the Strela-2M, or SA-7A Grail, the first of the Russian man-portable air-defense systems (MANPADS) first put in service in the 1960s.

“Libya has one of the largest stocks in the world of surface-to-air missiles. Qaddafi seemed to have a particular fondness for them,” Bouckaert said.

“We’re finding looted SAMs everywhere. Somebody is going systematically through some of these warehouses and collecting them. They just remove them and take them away.”