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Senior officials in the U.S. State Department and Pentagon believe high-ranking officers in the Nicaraguan army have a secret stash of about 80 Soviet-era SA-7 shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles that they are seeking to sell in the international black arms market. These concerns came to light after Nicaraguan police, reportedly acting on intelligence from the U.S. government, seized an SA-7 in a Jan. 11 sting in the capital city of Managua. Three Nicaraguans, who believed they were selling the weapon to representatives of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) militant group, also were arrested. The confiscated SA-7 was inoperative, according to Managuan police reports, and a source at the Organization of American States -- which maintains an official copy of the Nicaraguan army's inventory of about 1,100 SA-7s -- said the weapon's serial number and date of manufacture did not match any weapons in the inventory.
Nicaraguan Army Commander Javier Carrion has denied the U.S. allegations that corrupt Nicaraguan army officers have a secret stock of SA-7s for sale. However, Carrion has been unable to explain how a Soviet-era SA-7 appeared in Nicaragua, the only country in Latin America besides Cuba that has an arsenal of such weapons. Stratfor acknowledges the possibility that an SA-7 could have been stolen from the Cuban army and smuggled to Nicaragua, of all places. However, U.S. intelligence reportedly is very sure that the seized weapon is part of a cache of SA-7s some Nicaraguan army officers are believed to secretly possess.
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