Speaking to the Brussels press on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the US, De Kerchove said there was a risk that Al-Qaeda had secured arms and ammunition looted during the Libyan conflict, including surface-to-air missiles that could pose a threat to flights in the region.
"They have had the possibility to [...] access [...] weapons, including small arms and machine guns, or certain surface-to-air missiles which are extremely dangerous," he said.
Asked to react to De Kerchove's pronouncement, French Defence Minister Gérard Longuet strongly rejected the view that Al-Qaeda was taking advantage of the Libya crisis to strengthen its military capacity.
France, together with its close partners, is putting in place appropriate measures aimed at avoiding the spread of armaments, Longuet added, speaking to French daily Libération.
Recently, UK newspaper the Daily Telegraph discovered a huge Gaddafi weapons dump left unguarded in the capital, Tripoli. Its correspondent Richard Spencer found scores of boxes of high explosives, some wide open, in an open field in the city's suburbs.
Several boxes were marked Semtex and their contents appeared to be made up of the plastic explosive once supplied to lethal effect by Gaddafi's Libya to the IRA. Others appeared to contain ordinary TNT.
Announcing that a ministerial meeting would be held in Algeria today (7 September), bringing together the countries of the region, the EU, the UN and other international organisations, Algeria's minister in charge of African and Maghreb affairs, Abdelkader Messahel, said that "a new situation created by the Libyan crisis" favoured the spread of arms across the region.
COMMENTS
In response to Gilles de Kerchove's comments, one can best employ the analysis of the young Egyptian, Ibrahim Hodaiby, in today's 'Financial Times': "The revolutions have killed all the ideology of violence that underpinned the jihadi movements".
Of course, more arms equals more opportunities for conflicts - especially unintended ones - but that never stopped the global armaments industries, did it? Yes, individual acts of terrorism may occur as a consequence of this but the arc of jihadism, boosted by decades of wrong-headed 'Western' policies, will undoubtedly be undermined.
No, Europe's 'national interest' is best served by supporting and promoting democracy, dignity, development and social justice across the Arab nation. After all, Europeans and Arabs have lived together for millennia. It's not called the Mediterranean Sea for nothing.
Of course, the war in Libya increased the terrorist risk for the EU. It is ridiculous to deny that - because of the chaotic approach to the "liberation" thousands of weapons went conveniently missing and that obviously increase the chance those weapons to be used against the EU - in Europe or in Libya (or anywhere in the world). No matter who looted the guns.
Unfortunately for us all, all the recent "revolutions" in Arab world brought in power more Islamic oriented fractions. How this can be good for European safety is beyond my understanding. As long as you don't count economic safety, of course.
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