Tripoli , Libya ( CNN ) -- A potent stash of Russian-made surface-to-air missiles is missing from a huge Tripoli weapons warehouse amid reports of weapons looting across war-torn Libya . They are Grinch SA-24 shoulder-launched missiles , also known as Igla-S missiles , the equivalent of U.S.-made Stinger missiles . A CNN team and Human Rights Watch found dozens of empty crates marked with packing lists and inventory numbers that identified the items as Igla-S surface-to-air missiles . The list for one box , for example , written in English and Russian , said it had contained two missiles , with inventory number `` Missile 9M342 , '' and a power source , inventory number `` Article 9B238 . '' Grinch SA-24s are designed to target front-line aircraft , helicopters , cruise missiles and drones . They can shoot down a plane flying as high as 11,000 feet and can travel 19,000 feet straight out . Fighters aligned with the National Transitional Council and others swiped armaments from the storage facility , witnesses told Human Rights Watch . The warehouse is located near a base of the Khamis Brigade , a special forces unit in Gadhafi 's military , in the southeastern part of the capital . The warehouse contains mortars and artillery rounds , but there are empty crates for those items as well . There are also empty boxes for another surface-to-air missile , the SA-7 . Peter Bouckaert , Human Rights Watch emergencies director , told CNN he has seen the same pattern in armories looted elsewhere in Libya , noting that `` in every city we arrive , the first thing to disappear are the surface-to-air missiles . '' He said such missiles can fetch many thousands of dollars on the black market . `` We are talking about some 20,000 surface-to-air missiles in all of Libya , and I 've seen cars packed with them . '' he said . `` They could turn all of North Africa into a no-fly zone . '' There was no immediate comment from NTC officials . The lack of security at the weapons site raises concerns about stability in post-Gadhafi Libya and whether the new NTC leadership is doing enough to stop the weapons from getting into the wrong hands . A NATO official , who asked to not be named because he was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter , said 575 surface-to-air missiles , radar systems and sites or storage facilities were hit by NATO airstrikes and either damaged or destroyed between March 31 and Saturday . He did n't elaborate on the specifics about the targets . Gen. Carter Ham , chief of U.S. Africa Command , has said he 's concerned about the proliferation of weapons , most notably the shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles . He said there were about 20,000 in Libya when the international operation began earlier this year and many of them have not been accounted for . `` That 's going to be a concern for some period of time , '' he said in April . Gilles de Kerchove , the European Union counterterrorism coordinator , raised concerns Monday about the possibility that al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb , based in North Africa , could gain access to small arms , machine guns and surface-to-air missiles . Western officials worry that weapons from the storage sites will end up in the hands of militants or adversaries like Iran . The governments of neighboring Niger and Chad have both said that weapons from Libya are already being smuggled into their countries , and they are destined for al Qaeda . They include detonators and a plastic explosive called Semtex . Chad 's president said they include SA-7 missiles . An ethnic Tuareg leader in the northern Niger city of Agadez also said many weapons have come across the border . He said he and other Tuareg leaders are anxious about Gadhafi 's Tuareg fighters returning home -- with their weapons -- and making common cause with al Qaeda cells in the region . Gadhafi 's fighting forces have included mercenaries from other African nations . The missing weapons also conjure fears of what happened in Iraq , where people grabbed scores of weapons when Saddam Hussein 's regime was overthrown . Bouckaert said one or two of the missing artillery rounds are `` enough to make a car bomb . '' `` We should remember what happened in Iraq , '' he said , when the `` country was turned upside down '' by insurgents using such weaponry . There have been similar concerns in Afghanistan , where the United States provided thousands of Stinger missiles to the Afghan mujahedeen when they were fighting the Soviets in the 1980s . The United States has spent hundreds of millions of dollars trying to buy them back , fearful that they would fall into the hands of terrorists . CNN 's Emily Smith , Tim Lister , Joe Sterling and Larry Shaughnessy contributed to this report .
NEW : Gen. Carter Ham expresses concern over the missiles . SA-24s are the equivalent of U.S. Stinger missiles . The warehouse is in southeastern Tripoli . The missing weaponry stirs fears of instability .