FBI agents and local police arrested two men in Albany, N.Y., on Aug. 5 whom the FBI suspect of involvement in a money-laundering scheme. The men reportedly were arrested after trying to purchase a shoulder-fired surface-to-air missile (SAM) from an undercover agent. One of the men, identified as Yasseen Arif, is the imam of Albany's Masjid As-Salaam mosque; the other, Mohammed Hussain, is its founder. Both are suspected of being affiliated with Islamist militant Ansar al-Islam.

The arrests reportedly are not related to the recent roundups of al Qaeda suspects in Pakistan that led to heightened alert levels for parts of the United States. However, the notion that jihadists might attempt to mount an attack using a SAM is not new, and U.S. counterterrorism sources have told STRATFOR that they view this as a potentially serious threat to the U.S. airline industry. Considering the availability of such weapons and the ease with which such an attack could be carried out — whether by al Qaeda or far less sophisticated groups — STRATFOR also views this as a genuine risk for the air travel industry within the United States.

U.S. authorities have been concerned about militants' use of SAMs against airliners in the past. In August 2003, a British national of Indian descent was arrested as part of a SAM-smuggling ring in New Jersey. The arrest was the culmination of an 18-month sting operation run by U.S., Russian and British intelligence services. It also should be noted that al Qaeda militants attempted to shoot down a plane carrying Israeli civilians over Mombassa, Kenya, in 2002, using a shoulder-fired SAM.

SAM systems are not exotic weapons: The most common are designed to be man-portable and easily used by one or two people. On the open market, the most widely available systems are the Russian-built Surface-to-Air 7 (SA-7) and U.S.-made Stinger missiles. The Congressional Research Service estimates that as many as 700,000 shoulder-fired SAMs are available globally; on the black market, prices range from $5,000 to $75,000 per unit.

The Soviets and Americans distributed and sold SAM systems to numerous military and paramilitary organizations during the Cold War. Though many of these weapons would be nearly 20 years old — raising doubts about their functionality — the U.S. government is worried enough about the systems falling into the wrong hands that it has implemented a buy-back program targeting states that are known to possess these SAMs. Most recently, Washington persuaded the Nicaraguan military to destroy its arsenal of roughly 2,000 SA-7s.

In practical terms, the weapons are relatively easy to use:

• SA-7: The more common of the two systems, the SA-7 measures 4 feet long and weighs less than 50 pounds. It has a maximum range of 3.4 miles and a maximum altitude of 2.8 miles. It can be fired by a single operator.
• Stinger: The U.S. designed Stinger missile weighs 35 pounds and is 5 feet long. Its maximum range is 4.9 miles and its maximum altitude is 2 miles. It requires two operators.

In light of these facts, it is easy to envision someone firing a SAM at airliners as they take off or approach any number of U.S. airports. Moreover, multiple government agencies — including the FBI and General Accounting Office — have assessed the potential for such attacks and determined there is little that could be done, at least cost-effectively, to protect airplanes against this threat. To do so, security rings of up to five miles around the airports would need to be put in place, which is nearly impossible.

Most major U.S. airports — such as Dallas/Fort Worth, John F. Kennedy, Los Angeles International and Chicago O'Hare — are surrounded by swathes of publicly accessible land.

• New York's JFK is adjacent to the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge, a large wetland area.
• Chicago O'Hare is flanked by public parks and residential areas within a three-mile circumference.
• LAX is adjacent to the Pacific ocean and near a number of residential areas, such as the El Segundo and Playa del Rey neighborhoods.
• DFW, the largest of these four airports, is located within three miles of a large lake and residential areas.

What this means is that there are a number of areas from which someone toting a SAM could set up, wait for a plane to fly overhead, fire the missile and escape immediately after pulling the trigger. Though federal policies and security measures enacted since the Sept. 11 attacks have focused heavily on airports and airplanes — including such measures as exponential increases to the circumference of no-fly zones — the public areas surrounding airports remain vulnerable to exploitation.